Among those watching Sweden's preparations for their UEFA EURO 2008™ campaign is a familiar, and unmissable, figure.

Andersson looks on
Kennet Andersson is best known for scoring five goals as Sweden finished third at the 1994 FIFA World Cup and the 1.93m-tall striker also played at EURO '92 on home soil – another semi-final run – and UEFA EURO 2000™. His club career took him from Sweden to Belgium, France and Italy before he ended his professional days in Turkey with Fenerbahçe SK. These past few days has been among the spectators at national team's training sessions in Lugano, and will be in Salzburg to see them meet holders Greece in Group D.

Hard to call
"We are unsure but full of expectation," Andersson told euro2008.com. "Sweden are in a group which I expect Spain to win. The other three teams are difficult to judge. Even as a player, when you line up for that first match, you're unsure. You know your own gameplan, but you don't know if it'll be enough against the other teams." However, Andersson, who scored 31 international goals in 83 appearances, is impressed by his successors up front. "We've got several players of very high class in many positions, and there's Zlatan [Ibrahimović] and 'Henke' [Henrik Larsson] for whom I have high hopes. In any case Sweden should make it past the group stage."

Breakthrough
Sweden are in their fifth consecutive major finals, but it is easy to forget that in the 1980s they did not qualify once. When they did then reach the 1990 FIFA World Cup, their campaign consisted of defeats by Brazil, Scotland and Costa Rica. But their 18-year wait since the 1974 World Cup for some cheer at a final tournament was brought to an end by Andersson and Co in 1992 and the former target man remains proud of the achievement. "It was a big success at the time, since Sweden had a pretty bad World Cup in 1990," Andersson recalled. "The simple explanation is that we had an incredible team in 1992. It was a fairly young team, a team on the rise. But some of these young players had a lot of experience already, like [Jonas] Thern and [Stefan] Schwarz."