Breakdown of Var det anfallaren som missade skottet?
vara
to be
det
it (neuter)
missa
to miss
som
who / which / that (relative pronoun)
Questions & Answers about Var det anfallaren som missade skottet?
How does the cleft sentence structure change when asking a question?
In a regular statement, you start with Det var [X] som... (It was [X] who...). To turn this into a question, you simply swap the first verb and the dummy subject to get Var det [X] som.... The word order in the rest of the clause after som stays exactly the same.
Why do we use som here instead of vem for who?
In Swedish, som is the all-purpose relative pronoun used to link clauses, meaning who, which, or that. In a cleft sentence, you must always use som to connect the emphasized noun to the action. The word vem is strictly a question word and cannot be used as a connecting relative pronoun here.
What is the base form of anfallaren and how is the definite form constructed?
The base form is en anfallare (an attacker or striker). For en-words that end in -are, you only add an -n to make them definite, rather than the full -en ending. This avoids an awkward double vowel, giving us anfallaren instead of anfallareen.
Could I emphasize the shot instead of the striker using this same structure?
Yes! Cleft sentences are great for emphasizing different parts of a sentence. To emphasize the object instead of the subject, you just put the object in the emphasized slot: Var det skottet som anfallaren missade? (Was it the shot that the striker missed?).