The timing was just right for coach to return to his roots and get batch of superstars firing in time for a qualifying playoff
T
here was widespread approval from Sweden’s well-wishers when, during a training camp in Marbella this week, Graham Potter announced his new charges would play a variation of 4-4-2. A national team once tipped for greatness had been frayed, disconnected and muddled for too long. If their new manager had arrived with an unusually high profile, at least he had wasted no time in throwing on a familiar comfort blanket.
From one angle, that is just what the Sweden job resembles for Potter. He could surely not have believed his luck when, just over a fortnight after his dismissal by West Ham, the top job became open in the country where he made his name. The Swedish Football Association must have pinched itself at the timing, too.
Potter was installed swiftly, initially until March, and the fit looked good: 50-year-olds of his pedigree who are steeped in the local ways and, crucially, can handle a pay cut are hardly abundant in international football management. He had spent nearly two years out of the fray after leaving Chelsea but no rumination was needed this time. “I wasn’t ready to stop,” he said after arriving in Geneva for a fiendish-looking bow against Switzerland. “I didn’t need a break. I didn’t need anything. I wanted to carry on working.”
