Blue and Yellow Face Challenges on Home Turf

Sweden can still make it to the WC. But it won’t be thanks to this miserable qualifier, which will be rounded off with a meaningless match against Slovenia.
A heavy factor is worth weighing in!

“This won’t last – Fire Graham Potter”…
Nah, kidding aside. Karln has hardly had time to make any mark on the Swedish national team. And you can’t just talk back a bit of self-confidence.
It is also not enough to return to a four-back line and think that you automatically have to keep a clean sheet. They tried against Switzerland, but felt inferior all the time (with a huge absentee list) and after the 1-2 goal (mistake) the air ran out completely. Meaningless game at home against Slovenia now, which is also out of the equation. But of course we can hope – and believe – that players will go out and do their best for the blue and yellow shirt. But – there are still lots of injuries that bother.

The qualification has been a fiasco. But the chance for the World Cup is still there, thanks to the group victory in the Nations League – which gives a playoff. But all yellow cards remain and a whole nine (!) players are charged and thus in the danger zone. Not all of them will be able to be saved, but certainly some.

On both systems, I choose to nail…

Suriname!
Never, since FIFA started with the current system, has such a low-ranked national team been on the way to the World Cup. You hardly have the best conditions in the world. The entire country’s population corresponds to Gothenburg… But it’s not something you walk around and think about.

GM, Brian Tevreden, recently said this: “The whole country is just bubbling, you can’t go anywhere without there being talk of a possible World Cup”. The national team is better than ever. The people are more proud than ever. There is still work to be done, but everything is looking very, very good after the big win against El Salvador. You top the group with a better goal difference. So a draw can be enough – but to be on the safe side, it’s best to go for three points. At Guetamala it sounds like this…”Will do our best, even if the chance is gone”…
I’m not at all so sure about that. Would rather think that you see your chance to pay back with the same coin…
They have previously accused Panama (group two now, who need help) of “lay matches”. For example, during the 2006 qualifiers, when they chose to send out juniors against Trinidad & Tobago, only to go down 2-5.
There Guatemala had needed help – but instead considered itself to have been “deceived”.
Anyway. Suriname will be my bank – at a whopping 37 percent!