The leaking national team
Sweden has played with seven different back lines during Tony Gustavsson's total of ten international matches. Many changes have been due to injuries and dropouts. Others have been self-selected.
That the national team suffered from the lack of continuity is clear. Six goals from behind in six games in the World Cup qualifiers might sound a little on paper. But for a team that was the clear favorite in the group, it's a real bummer, and many late goals have come about due to individual mistakes or lapses in communication.
- We must be much better balanced, says the national team captain.
- The goals we have conceded have often been in transition situations, we need to take that with us now, says goalkeeper Jennifer Falk.
Mid-back veteran Amanda Ilestedt says about all the changes in the back line:
- Of course, it is not an optimal situation. As a backline player, you know that it usually takes some time before you find relationships between each other. But you do what you can and try to make the best of the situation.
As 94th-ranked Lithuania await the world eight in a first double-header for a World Cup ticket to Brazil in 2027, there could be a new back line again. Right back Smilla Holmberg has sprained her foot.
The goal drought of the world's most expensive player
Felicia Schröder makes headlines all over the world. The 19-year-old went from BK Häcken to Real Madrid as the world's most expensive soccer player on the women's side. There she has already scored eight goals in eight games - but in the national team she is goalless after eleven appearances.
Tony Gustavsson has been criticized for having used the talent in the wrong role, too far down the court, as "ten" in the last four games.
There she does not get the same right at all.
- It's a frustration in that I want more. I want to contribute with points and goals, Schröder said in April.
Now Gustavsson has quickly and hilariously changed his mind. Felicia Schröder will have the same role in the national team as she has in Real Madrid, he says.
- She must be allowed to play in the same way. Not having to think about a lot of changes, that "here I will do this, here I will be ten and link." She should just be Felicia Schröder. Then come the goals.
Nor is it only Schröder who has had difficulty scoring. In a number of qualifying matches, Sweden has been almost improbably ineffective. Six goals ahead during the qualifiers does not impress.
More workshop – less talk
It has been repeated like a mantra by the national team captain since last week, the analysis he made during the summer, how he thinks his generational national team is heading in the right direction - but has gone in the same direction too fast.
There have been too many changes in too short a time, is Gustavsson's new line. Now everything will become clearer.
He has done the evaluation together with players, he says.
- I traveled around Europe a lot and talked to players. They have been part of the analysis work and we have taken input from them.
During this week's press meetings, however, three tone-setting players did not really understand whether they were part of the said analysis work.
It's hard to remember, says goalkeeper Jennifer Falk:
- I know what I've been involved in, but not what I haven't been involved in. It is clear that we have discussed when we have had match briefings and various sittings. But nothing beyond that.
Amanda Ilestedt:
- No, I have not been involved. It is probably above all the management team that has had time to sit down and reflect.
Julia Zigiotti Olme answers briefly to the question of whether she was allowed to give her picture:
- No.
Speaking of the latter's answer, Tony Gustavsson says that analysis work "can be done in different ways".
- One is the daily, the informal conversations, where "Julle" may not realize how much she contributes with her opinions. So it doesn't always have to be that you book a meeting and say "now we're going to analyze."
Regardless of how involved his players have been, and who he's talked to, however, it's no longer time for talk. Starting in Kaunas tonight, it's all about the workshop.
