The story

Sweden opened the scoring in five of their last six World Cup matches, while Japan were not first to score in six of their last seven. Viktor Gyökeres leads Sweden with an average xG of 0.56 per match across their ten most recent World Cup games, and Yasin Ayari carries the highest average rating among Swedish players at 8.54. Both teams to score has occurred in four of Japan's last five World Cup matches, and head-to-head meetings have produced under 3.5 goals in five of the last six encounters between these sides.