Someone's pranked an IKEA ahead of the England v Sweden World Cup quarter-final

No one has any beef with the Swedes do they? On the contrary, they have meatballs (even if, gasp, they’re not actually Swedish).

You cannot hate a country that has given so much to the world as Sweden: ABBA; Henrik Larsson; Ace of Base; a shining example of a highly functional welfare state; Max Martin; Volvo; Björn Borg; Zara Larsson; Alfred Nobel; Stefan Edberg; Sven Goran Eriksson and IKEA. And that’s not to mention the exquisite geography, friendly people and their excellent flag.

But, this Saturday: it’s them or us.

Yes, England face off against the Swedes in the World Cup quarter-final and, with the nation truly gripped by World Cup fever and the absolute, unshakeable belief that football is finally coming home, following England’s penalty shoot-out win against Colombia, England fans are already dreaming of the final in a week’s time.

But hold on just a second, because underestimate Sweden at your peril. They finished ahead of the Netherlands in qualifying, knocked out Italy in the play-offs for the finals, came top of a group ahead of Germany and Mexico and then disposed of the 6th ranked side in the world Switzerland in the second round. The retirement of star striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic - prolific as he was for the national side - seems to have galvanised the rest of the team into a highly effective side. And that’s not to mention the fact that England have only won one of their last six tournament matches against them.

So, they’re clearly a good side, and we want to win. So, we’re gonna have to unsettle them: get in their faces. Start some trouble.

But we really like them.

So there’s nothing else for it: light pranking it is.

Thus, Capital FM North East have embarked upon the absolute perfect campaign of trolling in the form of a guerilla sign-swap campaign in the Gateshead branch of IKEA.

EAT THAT SWEDEN, WE’RE COMING FOR YOU.

Related: Every single ‘It’s Coming Home’ meme that you will need for England’s World Cup win

Yes, any shoppers heading down to Gateshead IKEA today looking to buy some stylishly minimal and highly affordable flat pack furniture (and always, in the end, a plant and some storage boxes (you can never have too much storage)) will be greeted by signs advertising ‘Football Etskommanhjome’ which, for those of you seriously slow on the uptake today (big night was it last night? Fair play, fair play) is said out loud as ‘Football is coming home’ which - and we’re going out on a limb here - you might have heard sung by someone over the last week.

Well played Capital, we’re gonna spend the rest of day with a megaphone shouting ‘ABBA AREN’T THE GREATEST POP GROUP EVER’ oh why are we pretending of course they’re the best please forgive us Benny, Bjorn, Agnetha and Anni-Frid we are not worthy….

(Image: Getty)