ConIFA Head of Refereeing and Swede Roger Lundbäck

Roger Lundbäck was Head of Refereeing at the recent ConIFA World Football Cup in England. Here, he looks at the World Cup success of his native Sweden

Unity, psychology and no Zlatanic superstars are secret of Sweden’s success

by Roger Lundbäck

How is it possible for Sweden to reach the World Cup quarter-final?

If you examine the squad list Sweden have you can see that it should be impossible. For the last 10 -15 years, we have had our one superstar Zlatan Ibrahimovic in our team. The focus was always on him to score and bring Sweden glory. Now he’s gone.

Although it’s really nice to have one superstar in the team,  it’s fair to ask if there’s a downside?  What happens with the team spirit, the same spirit Sweden had in World Cup 94 when we came 3rd?

We didn’t have any superstars in 1994, but our team was the superstar because every player was focused on the same thing,  the team – give 100% and push each other to the highest attainable limit that they could reach.

Passion to do something together brings a team to an higher level. 1+1 can often equal more than two because of this, or a team can be more than the sum of their players’ individual abilities The Swedish mentality prefers to start as underdogs and let the opponent think this will be an easy game.

The path was not easy. We had France and Netherlands in our qualification group to reach the World Cup. We beat France in Stockholm, Nils Toivonen scoring late in injury time, and prevented the Netherlands reaching the World Cup edging them out of a play off on goal difference. We had to negotiate Italy in the play-off and they couldn’t score against us in two games. Germany beat us in the group stage but we won the group.

Janne Andersson is our manager and, when he took on the job, he did so with the concept of team spirit in his thoughts and he worked really hard to get it back in the team. Zlatan didn’t want to be in the national team any more and that absence gave Janne gave him the opportunity to build up the team spirit again. Zlatan is really an fantastic players and did a lot for Sweden and i can’t say one bad word about him.

The problem is though when a team has all players on the same level and then you have one enormous superstar. Even if you had that, the issues arising can be modified if that superstar played in the defence or midfield. Under those circumstances, you can use him much better but our superstar was a striker. How do you provide him right balls to work with when the others are not on the same level and speed both mentally and physically?

There is one more aspect to talk about in team spirit. The whole squad with 23 players and all the managers and other people is really important. Daniel Ekvall is the team’s psychologist. He has been working with Janne Andersson for long time and they work with the whole squad and see the big picture together.

This helps to detect and deal with issues early and it ensures  that none is bigger then the team. Too see all the players and listen to them and discuss all types of situation both on the pitch but also outside in the ”real world” is massive when 23 players are locked away from their families in a foreign country.

Daniel Ekvall is the Swdiesh team’s psychologist

Is it possible for Sweden to go longer then quarter final? Why not?

The team is enjoying the journey with Janne. It is something they all created is something they don’t want to leave. When Sweden played Germany, there wasn’t one single Swedish player that would make it into the German 23 man squad never mind the team.

The Germans were, as individual players, much much better then the Swedes but they didn’t have the team spirit of their northern opponents. The next game is against England and the statistics says that we have a good record against them, with only two defeats in the last 15 games.

I know that Sweden’s doesn’t players the best football in the world but we do play the best that is obtainable out of our players, and we do it consistently.

And if we lose next game I’m not getting angry or upset because I know that all players have done their best and if that isn’t good enough….well, like any other Swede, I’ll find other problems that need to be fixed!

Roger Lundbäck – on Green Cards at ConIFA