Sweden earns solid win over Russia in IFAF European Championship qualifier

AFI | 2020 IFAF Men's European Championship Group A | 10/07/2019

Photo: Robert Sundberg

Team Sweden did as expected and defeated Russia 34-7 in a physical, hard hitting game in Moscow in first round IFAF European Championship Group A action this past weekend.

Sweden jumped out to a 20-0 halftime lead and cruised to the win.

Next up for Sweden is Great Britain on November 2.

Sweden’s starting quarterback Phil Juhlin threw one touchdown pass before getting knocked out of the game in the second quarter. Backup Dennis Isberg threw two more touchdown passes. Marcus Johnson, Kevin Börzsei and Joshua Akena all caught touchdown passes while defensive back Nicholas Peterson returned a kickoff for a touchdown. David Nyhlén kicked two field goals and all four extra points.

For Russia, quarterback Igor Chernolutsky tossed a touchdown pass to Alexander Belov and Nikolay Golovach kicked the PAT.

Russia vs Sweden 7-34 . Here’s one clip of @DennisIsbergQB and @KBorzsei touchdown 😀. Sweden 🇸🇪🔥💕❤️❤️❤️❤️ pic.twitter.com/KO8E5Q26RX

— Tommy (@tommyborzsei) October 5, 2019

Sweden opened the scoring halfway through the first quarter as Juhlin connected with Johnson to give the Swedes a 7-0 lead. Nyhlén extended it to 10-0 early in the second. Then Juhlin took off on a quarterback scramble still early in the second gaining 26 yards but was hit hard and finished the game on the sideline. Isberg entered the game and promptly engineered a scoring drive, hitting Börzsei for a touchdown to increase the lead to 17-0. Another Nyhlén field goal gave Sweden a 20-0 lead going into the break.

The Russians came out in the third quarter with a vengeance, with Chernolutsky connecting with Belov for a long touchdown to reduce the lead to 20-7. But on the ensuing kickoff Peterson found a seam and raced all the way back to restore the three touchdown lead, 27-7.

Neither team was able to reach scoring range after that until midway through the final stanza when Isberg struck again, this time finding Akena to finalize the score at 34-7.

With the win, Sweden takes control of D Division. Russia will travel to Great Britain for a game on October 19 while the Swedes will host the British squad November 2.