It seems they certainly weren't expecting to come up against what they did in Saint Denis. The Swedes were notably below-par throughout the encounter, while Ireland fans will have walked away from the Stade de France knowing right well that that was two points dropped rather than one point gained.
And judging by the Swedish media's reaction, they are in agreement that their team got something of a let-off against the team they are probably battling for third in the group.
Aftonbladet: "In practice, it was a loss"
Erik Niva described the result for Sweden as "more than we deserved, less than we needed", emphasizing that if Sweden were to progress further than the group stages, this was the match that they "needed to win" but that they were "not even close".
He did, however, reserve some praise for Ireland centre-back Ciaran Clark, scorer of the Swedes' only goal of the game, and called for a "monument" to Clark for his repeated efforts to bring Sweden back into the game (although to be fair to Clark, he had a good game otherwise).
'Sydsvenskan': "What did it take for you to get to your own party?"
Marjan Svab was not a happy man after the match, writing that Sweden failed to turn up to their "own party" and reward their deserving fans, who in the presence of air strikes had taken "all possible and impossible roads to Paris". The country's "collective yearning" had not been satisfied due to the underwhelming performance of its national side.
'Expressen': "There wasn't even a plan"
One of Sweden's top football writers, Bachner slammed his team's gameplan, or rather lack thereof. "There is one thing worse than going into a match with the wrong plan, and that is not to have any at all", he wrote, bemoaning Erik Hamren's side's toothlessness throughout the encounter.
Yet he also praised Martin O'Neill's men for how they "forced the pace" and managed to "strangle" the Sweden attack. In Bachner's opinion his country retreated to old "bad habits"-and this, ultimately, was their downfall in a result that was disappointing for both sides.
'Corren.se': "The Swedish ship was beached"
John Senewiratne doesn't hold back in his criticism of Swedish icon Zlatan Ibrahimovic, describing his performance as "invisible" and wondering out loud whether the (allegedly) Old Trafford-bound star is all verbal smoke but no goal-scoring fire.
Senewiratne queries whether Zlatan's pre-tournament boasts-such as "This is my country now, not the King's", were efforts to mask "uncertainty in his own form" ahead of the Euros. In terms of the result that the Scandinavians scraped "with the help of an Irishman" he concludes that "it would be dishonest to say that Sweden was worthy of this score". A common theme here, it would appear.
'Unt.se': "Sweden not worth a damn more"
More criticism of Zlatan et al. Henrik Soderlund opines that the opener resembled somewhat of a "reality" check after the nation was "tricked" by promising pre-Euros displays against Denmark (in the qualification play-off) and Wales (winning 3-0 in a friendly).
Sweden did not get going until "after 50 minutes of play" according to this particular scribe, who hopes to see John Guidetti on from the start instead of Marcus Berg, who after describing Ireland's defenders as "slow" in the build-up did an excellent impression of a traffic cone during the time he was on the pitch.
Soderlund makes an important point towards the end of his analysis, thanking the Irish and Swedish fans for creating a "party" atmosphere that was devoid of the uglier scenes we have witnessed between fans so far at this tournament.
