LONDON: Graham Potter took charge of Sweden in October with both coach and team in need of a reset. Now they are one game from the World Cup knockouts. The Swedes hammered Tunisia 5-1 in their opening game in Mexico on Sunday to seize control of Group F, after the Netherlands were held 2-2 by Japan. They will clinch qualification for the last 32 if they beat the Dutch in Houston on Saturday, and if they win and Japan fail to beat Tunisia they will top the group.
It is a remarkable turnaround for a team that finished bottom of their European qualifying group behind Switzerland, Kosovo and Slovenia. Sweden scored just four goals and failed to muster a single victory in their six games. Potter, who replaced the Dane Jon Dahl Tomasson on a short-term deal with two games to go, was unable to stop their slide. But Sweden's lifeline came courtesy of their UEFA Nations League ranking, which secured a place in the European play-offs. The nation's football chiefs showed their trust in Potter by awarding him a contract in March that will take him up until 2030. And he repaid their faith in style by leading them past Ukraine and Poland to the World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the United States.
Turnaround
It is a remarkable turnaround for Potter, whose managerial stock was low after bitterly disappointing brief spells at Chelsea and West Ham. For the 51-year-old, once touted as a potential successor to former England boss Gareth Southgate, returning to Sweden was something of a homecoming. Potter, who speaks Swedish, coached Ostersund from 2011 until 2018, leading them from the fourth tier into Sweden's top flight in 2015 and to Swedish Cup glory in 2017. He went on to manage Swansea in the English Championship before stepping up to the Premier League with Brighton, where he enjoyed a successful period before taking the Chelsea job.
Sweden's mauling of Tunisia in Monterrey was no mean feat, considering the North African nation went through qualifying without conceding a single goal. But Potter was keen not to get carried away as he looked forward to a challenging match against the eighth-ranked Dutch, 26 places higher than Sweden in the FIFA charts. "It's a good start for us, that's all it is," he said. "We know we face a different opponent in the next game. We have to focus on our job and focus on how we play as a team," he added. "We'll meet another top team at the weekend that's one of the favourites for the competition, I would say, when you look at the players they have, the quality they have. So, it's going to be a tough game."
Sweden's star forwards Alexander Isak and Viktor Gyokeres both scored against Tunisia while Brighton midfielder Yasin Ayari netted twice. "I think they'll get better and better the more they play," he said when asked about Arsenal's Gyokeres and Liverpool's Isak. "I think they complement each other very well. They bring different attributes, different qualities. Individually, of course, they're top players. But I think together they can be a real threat. So the challenge for us is to make sure the team functions well and to get the best out of those two guys."
The Scandinavians have a rich World Cup history, highlighted by a run to the final in 1958. They failed to qualify for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar but are back at a happy hunting ground after securing a third-place finish at USA 1994. Potter has a chance to add another sparkling chapter to Sweden's World Cup story and cap a remarkable revival of his own.
