The Fall of Swedish Football

From Olympic gold and World Cup silver to failing to qualify for consecutive major tournaments. How did we get here?
Heaven and Hell · Jeremy Blake
Kevin Macleod - The Descent. Available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

[@MattsAttack9]

Great video. When you take it from the last century, it really is a steep decline. It's crazy how no manager has been sacked in their history. Sweden look so done playing under Janne

[@daviddumitru9102]

I am from Romania, and for like the past 30 years we keept getting worse and worse. In 1990 wc, round of 16, in 1994 wc we made it to qf (and got eliminated by sweden lol) and in 1998 we made it into round of 16 again, that beeing our last wc appearance. Our only euro appearances from the current century were in 2008 and 2016 (got grouped in both). Last year, as well as Sweden, we got relegated from group B to group C and things were looking grim. I gotta say that right now our euro qualification campaign is looking really well, as we managed to draw against switzerland and remain undefeated in 4 games, and I hope that we will qualify from the second spot. Regarding our domestic league, we didnt have a romanian club in the champions league for the past 9 or 10 years, falling from our former glory (steaua winning the champions league in 1986, also steaua beating ajax in 2012 and putting a great fight against chelsea (also in 2012), there, of course, beeing also a lot more great games made by romanian teams in the past). For the past 10 years things kinda stabilized and we remaind without any accomplishements, but right now things are looking much better (at least in the euro qualifying campaign), and I hope that our football will get better, and maybe we will even qualify to the 2026 wc (probably not gonna happen). Good luck to Sweden from Romania, hope the situation will get better for both countries!!!!

[@Orebrohkfan]

From world cup quarter-finalists to losing in nations league to not even qualifying for euros? What is going on 😢

[@belligol5783]

nice vid bro. so informative and entertaining. keep it up

[@sebball1]

Thanks Jesse. Sorry about Jane and Andrea.

[@encorefootball]

No records of goals and tables are kept for kids? Looks like the mentality of participation awards has spread its tentacles.

[@jonathand3530]

Completely correct. Janne would be a very small and temporary problem for any other nation. The manager is often the one part that actually matters the least in how a footballing nation fares. A bad manager can mess up some major tournaments for sure, and it will look horrible, but once they're fired it isn't hard for a nation to bounce back if they have the right foundations. Denmark is in need of a managerial change if you ask me but I have no worries that they can't bounce back from the WC failure. But if Janne stays too long now then the team will just stagnate, and he isn't playing youngsters enough so they're not developing into the national team. Even if he left, Swedens best players are all extremely concentrated in the forward positions. This is the case for a lot of countries for natural reasons but it's still not a good thing. Isak, Kulu, Forsberg, Karlsson, Gyökeres, Claesson, and even the next generation with Roony, Kanga, and Swedberg. A team full of attackers won't do any good without good defending and service. Big changes need to be made and it will take years to recover, but they're not even making any changes...

[@cia5649]

sweden has good players for defence as well but its like they run out of steam mid game or something like the game against austria

[@bootleg1362]

I tend place my piano in betwen my toasters, reguarly

[@nactox]

I totally agree. We got incredible young talents that surpasses most of the country but we can’t get it together

[@qBeYcarpet]

Being from Finland it sounds relatable except for the part of being good in the past :D

[@katarinajonsson3336]

it's really sad but as a swede i have to agree on this video. but i still has my hopes that we'll get back on track.

[@commodorezero]

Scandanavia is hockey country and the early years of the FIFA world cup might not have been hockey country yet. Always notice how them super Northern countries don't do great at soccer as you'd think they would?

[@ssvoogel]

Scandinavia isn't a country.

[@nicardoholland3621]

Learn to differentiate between a region and a country before spouting some ludicrous statements.

[@commodorezero]

@@ssvoogel I said "is hockey country" not "is a hockey country". Its like calling the south "football country" or the midwest "farm country".

[@jonjones3841]

Sweden has the ingredients to make a good team. Isak and Elanga are really good players that you can build a team around. I think you just need to fire the coach. Dude has stayed there way too long.

[@cia5649]

problem with the younger ages is that they try giving everyone as much playtime a good goal but its better to have multiple youth teams where they are actually ranked from a early age

[@Awesome_Set]

Austria with 10 Points is lowkey crazy. you cant be saying sweden is bad while Austria did 1-1 to Belgium, a 30th best team did 1-1 with a 5th best

[@Defenestrering]

I find it a little weird that the fact that hockey and other wintersports take alot of the youth in northern countries are rarly put forward in this debate. I find it a compelling argument for why sweden is behind, even though im starting to think I might overestimate it since even no respectable swedish journalists mention it like Olof Lundh and others.. Even though I truly agree that we should be doing ALOT better than we are. Think it will be hard to reach portugal levels but we should always be better than our nordic brothers and sisters, just because!;)

[@maonparas]

Bro Sweden has nothing to complain about compared to Finland

[@samykiani944]

Sweden has also the problem that football isn't the uncontested no 1 sport in the country. I believe sports like Ice Hockey and Handball are very popular too. For a country of small or medium size it's almost impossible to have multiple sports teams do well at the same time. Take Croatia for example. Now with their football team geting all the attention and going from success success their handball team is in a bad state. Sweden's handball team has been doing lately but it's now the football team that lags behind.

[@kevin97951]

Exactly. When Croatia was not so good at soccer in the 2000s, their men's handball team performed well. And before 1996, their national basketball team performed well.

[@KingBroly98-]

When Sweden was good at football, swedish ice hockey team did well too. Both sports succeeded

[@Nilssongarage]

We sucks

[@xh2633]

At least you women's team is good.

[@user-yb2cr4hf3r]

SWEDEN IS HOCKEY NATION SWEDEN WAS NEVER FOOTBALL NATION FROM BEGINNING

[@herle]

1:31 I lol'ed! (I'm danish, sorry, I can hear your frustration) You are giving way to much importance on your national coach (look at the players he got to choose from! You can't except much more). And artificial fields make the ball easier to predict, not harder. Norway has so many artificial fields (and Denmark too), that shouldn't be the problem. It actually gives better opportunities to develop the technical abilities. The biggest problem is that you don't generate good enough young talents...that's it. (and maybe you play to much ice hockey!) So I do agree on that part of your video. The other countries have professionalised the youth development because it gives good money (and good results an the longer term). Sweden haven't done enough compared. Maybe they have structural problems as well because of integration problems. The football trend follows the generel decline as a country!

[@sebball1]

Yeah, we are certainly in a tough spot at the moment. I make it clear that player development is the bigger problem compared to our management, even though Janne Andersson definitely has to be replaced. I don't necessarily think artificial turfs are a problem. I only mention it because it's something I've heard people bring up, like Per Mathias Høgmo for example, who has played and managed professionally in both Norway and Sweden. A valuable perspective.

[@herle]

@@sebball1 The picture of Janne is on the screen several times...I think your frustration over him spills over in the other discussion about development of pleyers. I've noticed a lot of people who hates 'artificial turfs' in generel, they take every opportunity to throw shade at it...and it does't matter what the subject is. (At least I see these people in Denmark, could be the same with this Per-guy) Doesn't sound like valid reasons in this area.

[@sebball1]

@@herle Considering Janne Andersson was good for the first five years of his stint despite Sweden's limited talent pool, it's clear his managerial capabilities have declined. You can't talk about the fall of Sweden and not mention Janne, even though player development is the bigger issue. I even specify that it's "unclear if a managerial change even would improve our situation, due to our poor player development". But he definitely has to be replaced.

[@sd5rtgfcdgfdc888]

Well he plays to defensive minded and wont change from the 4-4-2, he should play 4-3-3 with jesper kalrsson at LW and Jens cajuste as a holding middfielder, we have a good attack so we should atleast try to use it.

[@KingBroly98-]

Jari Litmanen

[@jimmyyue238]

What Sweden can only do is just keep beating Mexico over and over even after being relegated in nations league twice in a row from league A to league C.