Sweden’s World Cup run is over, and the internet is coping the only way it knows how: with furniture jokes.
The Swedish men’s national team fell to France in the Round of 32 of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, a result that landed around June 29-30 and sent one of Europe’s most storied football nations packing from the tournament. The defeat also completed a rather dubious milestone: Group F, which included Sweden, Tunisia, the Netherlands, and Japan, became the first group in this World Cup where every single team has been eliminated.
Flat-pack football and a group-wide collapse
Social media lit up with memes referencing IKEA meatballs, a callback that apparently traces back to Sweden’s earlier victory over Tunisia in the group stage. Fans had celebrated that win with IKEA-themed humor, and now that the journey is over, those same jokes have resurfaced with a bittersweet twist.
The cultural connection between Sweden and its most famous export isn’t new. During the 2018 World Cup, similar celebrations and memes tied Swedish football to the flat-pack empire.
