Sweden captain Andreas Granvqist has vowed to play against England on Saturday, even if the match clashes with the birth of his second child.

Granvqist’s wife was due to give birth yesterday, when Sweden beat Switzerland 1-0 to reach the quarter-finals, but the talismanic centre-back, who has helped his side concede just twice in the tournament so far, says he will definitely play in Samara, even if he returns home briefly first.

“I’m planning to stay,” he said. “My wife is a very strong person and we knew the situation before I came here. Nothing has happened so far. If I have the position to fly home quickly then I may do that. But, whatever happens, I do not miss the quarter-final.”

Granvqist also said Sweden are a better team since the retirement of Zlatan Ibrahimovic in 2016 and warned England’s forwards they will not find it easy on Saturday.

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“Harry Kane is fantastic,” he said. “They play more offensively now than they did before, with skilful players like [Raheem] Sterling. But they will find it difficult. We play with a very good, compact defence. We lost a lot of big names — we had to start from the beginning and play with 23 players, not one or two.

“We’ve worked really hard and we’ve shown that we really work for each other, we fight for each other and we do it as a collective. That’s the strength of Sweden at the moment.”

Sweden saw off Holland and Italy in qualifying, indirectly ousted Germany in the group stage and inflicted only Switzerland’s second defeat in 26 matches, although goalkeeper Robin Olsen warned England they were not at their best yesterday.

“We didn’t play at the top against Switzerland,” he said. “If you compare the game with the Germany and Mexico games, we can go higher.”

Told that many feel England and Sweden were in the easier half of the draw, Olsen replied: “Let them talk. There are eight strong teams left.”

Meanwhile, Switzerland’s Xherdan Shaqiri warned England that they are in for a slog against Sweden.

“They have big players at the back and just try to play on the counter-attack,” said the Stoke playmaker. “It was not beautiful but they create a few chances. Beautiful football doesn’t always win. Today it is important to win games and it’s not important how. I don’t think they are going to change against England. It’s going to be the same."