England took the prized scalp of the world and European champions with a 1-0 win that came thanks to a set-piece goal scored by Frank Lampard and a prodigious amount of hard work, not least by man-of-the-match midfielder Scott Parker.
Fabio Capello, who seems to have a virtual blank sheet of paper when it comes to naming his likely starting XI for next year's European championship finals, has already said he will make several changes from Saturday's side, which itself was somewhat experimental.
With Wayne Rooney banned for the first three games of Euro 2012, Capello has decided to play this week's friendlies without him to give him a chance to look at the alternatives.
Darren Bent, who set up Lampard's goal with a good header, is gradually working himself into Capello's plans, though international goal machine Peter Crouch seems to have fallen out of favour.
"They played without fear, with personality on the pitch - I can see they were good enough to play with the seniors," the Italian said of his new crop, which also included Manchester United duo Danny Welbeck and Phil Jones.
It seems Capello has given up trying to establish a settled team and instead is intent on making sure he has a squad of players he has confidence in and who can slot in and out without destroying the side's rhythm.
While all is suddenly buoyant in the England camp, Sweden looked lacklustre in Friday's 2-0 friendly defeat by Denmark in Copenhagen, and certainly lacked the spark shown when dramatically securing their fourth successive Euro qualification with a home win over the previously unbeaten Dutch in October.
"Obviously I'm not happy, we weren't aggressive enough and we lost the ball too easily," head coach Erik Hamren said.
Consequently Hamren may have a look at PSV Eindhoven's Ola Toiv
