Sweden has surprised all and sundry by reaching the Quarter Finals of this year's World Cup, something they were never able to do with their previous captain and swashbuckling talisman, Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
So to celebrate their meteoric success at this year's showpiece sports event, we did a bit of research to uncover some interesting facts about Sweden:
It's Europe's fifth biggest country
At 449,964km² Sweden is, by European standards, a large country (were it in Africa it'd be the 24th largest country on the continent). The only European countries larger than Sweden are France, Spain, Ukraine and Russia.
Sweden has more MacDonald’s per person than any other country in Europe
Basically, Sweden is the USA of Europe. Of all the European countries, no one else munches on Big Macs as frequently as the Swedes.This is a strange one considering that Sweden has amoung the highest life expectancy in the world.
The Swedes actually have a strong World Cup record
Look, they aren't Brazil. But Sweden have a pretty impressive history at the World Cup. They've finished third twice (1950 and 1994) and second in the 1958 World Cup, as the host national, losing 5–2 in the final to Brazil.