Most valuable squad in the group
©IMAGO
Graham Potter has a new job almost a month after leaving West Ham United. The 50-year-old is taking over the Swedish national team after parting ways with Jon Dahl Tomasson and is expected to preserve the remaining chances of the 2026 World Cup. The connection to Sweden comes from his first coaching position at Östersunds FK, where he was on the sidelines in 224 games from 2011 to 2018 and won the Swedish Cup in 2017.
“I am very humbled by this task, but also incredibly inspired. Sweden has fantastic players who perform week in week out in the best leagues in the world. My job will be to create the conditions for us to play at the highest level as a team to lead Sweden to the World Cup next summer,” said Potter, who averaged just 0.92 points in 25 games for West Ham – the worst record in the club’s history.
Although Sweden has by far the most valuable squad in World Cup qualifying group B with 516 million euros, they are in last place with just one point from four games behind Slovenia, Kosovo and Switzerland (to the table). In order to maintain the chance of the playoffs in March, the two games against Switzerland and Slovenia must be won clearly. We also need help because Kosovo is no longer allowed to score a point.
“It remains our goal to qualify for next summer’s World Cup. We hope to reach the playoffs in March and all the decisions we have made so far are based on optimizing the conditions to achieve our goal. We have worked on this process in a structured and focused manner over the last week and in Graham Potter we gain a strong and experienced leader who has proven himself at the highest level,” explained director Kim Källström.