St Petersburg: Sweden are the underdogs going into their World Cup last-16 match with Switzerland, but are counting on strategy and trust in collective effort to help them reach the quarter finals, captain Andreas Granqvist said on Monday.

Sweden face Switzerland here on Tuesday in what promises to be a game of fine margins. The Swiss came through Group E unbeaten, winning once and drawing twice to finish second behind Brazil, while Sweden, whose defensive style of play has been criticised in some quarters, topped Group F despite being beaten by Germany.

"We know what got us this far," Granqvist told a news conference. "We know Switzerland have been playing really well over a long period of time.

"They are the favourites for the match and that we would in any way underestimate them is not even in the cards. We know what brought us here - very strong collective defence and the courage to attack as well."

With the teams evenly matched and neither boasting a wealth of attacking options, the tie could well be decided by a penalty shoot-out, and Sweden coach Janne Andersson said he had a plan for that eventuality.

"It's my job to decide on the players who need to perform, in this case for the penalty shoot-out situation," the 55-year-old said.

"We've talked about it in the squad and I'm going to rank the players, the entire squad in terms of penalties. We have a clear plan in place for what we're going to do, but I'm not going to enter into any more details."

Granqvist, who has scored two penalties in Russia already, said he was confident of adding to that tally if it came down to it. But he hopes Sweden would prevail in normal time.

"If we do get to penalties, Janne will decide the order and call the shots. I have absolutely no clue at this stage," he added.

Beaten 2-1 by a last-gasp goal by 2014 champions Germany in the group stage, the Swedes were aggrieved over what they perceived to be excessive celebrations by the German coaching staff in front of their bench. Andersson criticised the Germans in the wake of that defeat, but both his captain and he denied they gloated over Germany's shocking failure to get out of their group.

"I think it's unfortunate for Germany that they were eliminated," Andersson said. "As far as we're concerned, we don't really worry about how other teams are doing.

"There was absolutely no gloating whatsoever in terms of Germany or any other team for that matter."

On the other hand, if Vladimir Petkovic's side beat Sweden, they will become the first Swiss team in 64 years to qualify for the quarter finals of football's biggest competition.

Although they have largely gone under the radar in Russia - double-eagle scoring celebrations against Serbia aside - the unheralded team are enjoying an impressive tournament.

Marshalled by captain Stephan Lichtsteiner, driven by Valon Behrami's energy and able to call on Xherdan Shaqiri's creativity, Switzerland emerged from a tricky Group E.

But as they look to match or even better that showing of 1954, there is a significant cloud on the horizon for the Sweden match.

Switzerland's defence have excelled so far, but will be without key defenders Lichtsteiner and Fabian Schaer after both picked up two yellow cards in the group stage.

Switzerland and Sweden have not met since 2002, so there are no recent indications of who could have the edge on Tuesday.Switzerland coach Vladimir Petkovic, meanwhile, has said that Switzerland draw strength from the cultural diversity in their squad. "We have managed to bring together different cultures, different talents, different ideologies and they help us to play really good football," Petkovic told a news conference.

• Kick-off: 7.30 pm (IST)

Agencies