papin strikes as france deny hosts sweden published: sunday 5 october 2003, 15.19cet
jean-pierre papin silenced the hosts on opening night as sweden failed to build on jan eriksson's opener.
tommy svensson's sweden had the honour of scoring the first goal of euro '92, but jean-pierre papin struck to deny the hosts an opening-night victory in group a.
eriksson arrived late to get a head to anders limpar's corner from the left after 24 minutes, and sweden thoroughly deserved their lead, with jonas thern in commanding form in midfield. however, les bleus' coach michel platini changed things round at the interval, bringing on christian perez. the tiny midfielder duly laid on the equaliser on 58 minutes, with papin chasing down his through ball and firing past thomas ravelli in the sweden goal.
france did it the hard way, though, looking a pale comparison of the side who had won all of their qualifiers to reach the finals. even with parity restored they were almost hit again as klas ingesson, sweden's midfield workhorse, managed to hit a post with france unable to entirely stifle the hosts in front of a lively råsunda stadium crowd.
both sides seemed happy enough with the draw, and a good result against france did much to fire local enthusiasm for the sweden team. with england and denmark drawing 0-0 in the other group a opener the following day, the stage was set for a nail-biting section.
