MALMO, Sweden Sweden, who are not appearing at the World Cup finals, notched up a defiant 3-0 victory against neighbours Denmark here on Thursday night. Fredrik Ljungberg headed home the first into an empty net in the 23rd minute following good work by Henrik Larsson, Joergen Pettersson and Haakan Mild. Then Pettersson, brought down by Denmark keeper Schmeichel, converted the resulting penalty in the 34th minute to put Sweden 2-0 ahead.

Pettersson needed two attempts to score his second and Sweden's third goal five minutes after the interval following a pass by Larsson. We were well and truly beaten and the Swedes were clearly better, Denmark's Swedish coach Bosse Johansson said afterwards. We still have two weeks preparation till the world cup and I think that will fare better than our performance this evening.

(AFP)