Sweden missed 2018 (quarterfinals, a pleasant surprise) and then missed 2022 entirely — Zlatan's international career ended with a goalless European playoff loss to Poland that felt like the end of something. For four years the country pretended not to care. They cared.
Graham Potter — yes, the English Chelsea-Brighton-West Ham Graham Potter — took over as Swedish national team manager in March 2026, in time for the decisive two-leg playoff route that Sweden had backed into via Nations League promotion. He inherited a team with Viktor Gyökeres in historic form, Alexander Isak at Liverpool, and Dejan Kulusevski finally freed from Tottenham's tactical fog. He built a 3-4-3, told them to press high, and watched Gyökeres score the 88th-minute winner against Poland in Stockholm that sent them through.
Sweden is the dark horse of Group F. Netherlands are favorites. Japan is good enough to beat anybody. Tunisia is scrappier than their reputation. But Sweden has two of the five best center-forwards in world football right now, a creative 10 who can unlock any defense, and a manager who has finally been given a team that fits his system instead of the other way round. This is the first post-Zlatan Swedish team that doesn't feel haunted. They might beat Netherlands. They might go out in the group. Either way, you'll want to be watching when Gyökeres gets a step on a defender.
Arsenal's £64m summer signing from Sporting Lisbon, where he scored 97 goals in 102 games and rewrote what was physically possible for a center-forward. Scored the 88th-minute winner against Poland in March that sent Sweden to the World Cup, in front of a home crowd in Stockholm, and celebrated by pointing at the crest like he'd rehearsed it for three years. He probably had. Nobody in 2026 runs more meters per match as the focal striker than Gyökeres.
The Liverpool center-forward who cost the British transfer record last summer when Newcastle finally gave in. Elegant on the ball, clinical in the box, and the least-Swedish-looking Swedish striker in national team history — he grew up in Solna to Eritrean parents and learned the game in a multicultural Stockholm suburb that produces national team players the way Rio produces them. Forms a strike partnership with Gyökeres that nobody in Europe has figured out how to defend.
The Tottenham winger-turned-attacking-midfielder whose first touch is one of the five best in the Premier League on any given matchday. Born in Stockholm to North Macedonian parents, chose Sweden over North Macedonia at 19, and has been the creative heartbeat of this post-Zlatan team ever since. If Sweden scores in June, Kulusevski is probably the one who put the pass through. Graham Potter — yes, that Graham Potter — took over as manager in March 2026 and built the whole attack around him.
Köttbullar are the answer everyone expects and also the correct one — small, tender pork-and-beef meatballs in a rich cream gravy, with boiled potatoes, a spoonful of lingonberry jam on the side, and pickled cucumber if it's a proper table. Then gravlax (salt-and-sugar-and-dill-cured salmon, sliced paper-thin), kanelbullar (cardamom-heavy cinnamon buns eaten with coffee at 10 a.m. — the ritual is called fika and it is non-negotiable), and a shot of snaps (aquavit, 40% ABV, flavored with caraway) before midsummer lunch that you are supposed to sing through. Swedish food is simpler than its global reputation suggests. It's also better.
DFW's Swedish options are slim — acknowledged gap. The Wooden Spoon in Plano (14902 Preston Rd) is a Scandinavian market and café carrying Swedish groceries, candy, kanelbullar, and the full IKEA-but-actually-good meatball experience. They do a proper fika in the afternoon. And yes, IKEA Frisco has meatballs and lingonberry soda in the café for less than $6 — the tongue-in-cheek answer that is also the accurate one for match-day weekends when you need Swedish food and a parking lot big enough for 10,000 cars.
A soundtrack for the matches, the pregame, and the afterparty.
Sweden travels in yellow — not the red of Spain, not the orange of the Dutch, but a specific school-bus yellow with blue trim that's somehow louder than both. They sing "Du gamla, du fria" before kickoff, a slow, almost hymnlike anthem that sounds like a Nordic folk ballad because it is one. Expect viking helmets (ironic), facepaint (sincere), and ABBA on the walk back from the stadium regardless of the result. Swedish fans are the friendliest crowd in European football, which is not quite the same thing as quiet. If they score, an entire section will be doing "the wave" in 40 seconds.
Sweden finished bottom of their World Cup qualifying group with two points and still qualified — because Nations League promotion had already given them a second-chance playoff route. They then beat Ukraine and Poland in March, with Viktor Gyökeres scoring an 88th-minute winner against Poland in Stockholm. No country has ever made it to a World Cup more sideways than this.