Sweden

The man in possession of the gloves, more or less — he kept goal through the playoff wins over Ukraine and Poland that dragged Sweden to North America, and that body of work in the moments that mattered most is why the projection has him starting against Tunisia even after Potter rotated Nordfeldt in for the Greece friendly. At 27 he is into the part of a goalkeeper's life where the position is meant to settle on him for a decade, and a first World Cup is the stage on which that claim is either pressed or quietly handed back. His club season was spent in the Championship grind with Stoke, a long way from the Premier League spotlight several team-mates enjoy, which only sharpens the sense that this is his shop window. Whether he or Nordfeldt takes the field in Monterrey is, by Potter's own design, not yet resolved.

The elder of the three keepers and, at 36, plainly in his last act — a familiar face from the Janne Andersson years who has long since traded the Premier League for the calm of home, anchoring AIK in the Allsvenskan. That he started the Greece friendly muddies the picture Potter has been content to leave muddy: this is no settled number-two but a live contender for the opener, his experience weighed against Viktor Johansson's playoff credit. For a goalkeeper of his vintage a fourth association with a major squad is a coda, and to be tested for a starting place at all at this point is more than most expected to still be asking of him.

The third keeper, recovered from a spring fitness problem in time to make the cut, and on the projection the one least likely to play. At 27 he is the same age as Viktor Johansson but a rung behind him in the pecking order, his football this season the second-tier English variety at Derby. A pulled save against Strand Larsen in the Norway friendly was the kind of cameo that keeps a depth goalkeeper's name in the conversation; barring injury to the two ahead of him, the tournament is one of watching and learning rather than playing.

The captain and the one true survivor of the side that reached the 2018 quarter-final, Lindelöf is the deepest of the three centre-backs and the man who organises the line, sets its height and sends the long diagonals that switch the point of attack. At 31, and with 76 caps behind him, he is the bridge between the era of Granqvist and Forsberg and whatever Potter is now building, the calm reference point a defence assembled in a fortnight badly needs around it. His club season was a move down from the Manchester United stage of his peak to Aston Villa, a sign of a career easing past its summit even as it stays useful. He missed the Greece friendly as a precaution, with Potter insisting the World Cup was never in danger and the captain expected back for the Tunisia opener — and on his presence much of the back line's composure depends. In all likelihood this is his final World Cup, the last chance for a defender of his standing to add a knockout run to a long international life.

The right-sided centre-back of the three and the quickest defender in Potter's spine, which in a side that defends deep and concedes the ball is close to indispensable — he is the one who steps into midfield to snuff out a carry and the one who recovers when the first pass over the top breaks down. A full season at Atalanta, 28 Serie A appearances and 20 starts with a single goal, was spent organising a line at a club that defends against the best in Europe, exactly the schooling a hurried Swedish back three can lean on. At 27 he is in the prime of a centre-back's life, established abroad and entering his first World Cup as a fixture rather than a hopeful. Much of whether the low block holds against quicker movement than it has yet faced rests on his ability to cover the ground a makeshift defence leaves open around him.

Pencilled in as the left-sided centre-back, though his is the tightest fitness question in the side: he carried a back problem through the camp and only returned to play against Greece on 4 June, fit again but short of match-sharpness with Gustaf Lagerbielke waiting directly on his shoulder. At 31 he is a late-blooming international, his 17 caps modest for his age, his standing earned through a steady LaLiga season at Celta Vigo — 19 appearances, 17 starts and the unglamorous defensive work the role asks. This is the kind of World Cup that arrives once for a player of his profile, and the whole defensive plan swings on whether the back holds and the legs last; if either gives, Lagerbielke is the ready replacement.

The left wing-back and the more conservative of the two flank players by Potter's design — he holds the touchline, crosses from deep and tucks back into a five when the block forms, the balance against Herman Johansson's more adventurous overlapping on the right. At 27 he is in his peak years and arrives off a season at Leeds, a step up that has hardened him for this level. With 23 caps he is neither a newcomer nor an old hand but a player settling into a first-choice international role at the right moment, his first World Cup a chance to make the left flank his own. Ken Sema offers Potter the alternative if the game demands something different down that side.

The most makeshift selection in the projected eleven, and through no fault of his own: he was promoted from the reserves on 30 May when Emil Holm withdrew with a muscle injury, and a man who would otherwise have watched the tournament now finds himself penned in at right wing-back, asked to provide the width and the overlapping runs that Holm's athleticism was meant to give. At 28, with just three caps and a season in Major League Soccer at FC Dallas, this is a stage far above the one his career had pointed him toward — the kind of accidental World Cup that befalls a squad player when the man ahead breaks down. Daniel Svensson is the alternative if Potter wants the role done differently, which leaves the right flank the least settled position in the side.

The first reserve in the back three, and rather more than a token one — he started against Greece while Starfelt was managed back to fitness, and should the older man's back not hold he is the one who steps straight into the left-of-three role. At 26 he is at the age where a centre-back is meant to convert promise into a settled career, his ten caps still a modest tally, his club football a move to SC Braga in Portugal after his Celtic spell. A first World Cup with a genuine chance of starting minutes is a real opportunity; whether it comes depends largely on a team-mate's spine rather than his own form.

The natural left-back of the squad and, at 24, one of the younger defenders Potter has kept faith with — quick, left-footed and athletic, the alternative to Gudmundsson on the left and a candidate to be shuffled across if the right flank needs covering. He featured in the June friendlies and earns his place on the back of football at Borussia Dortmund, a higher stage than his twelve caps might suggest. This is a first World Cup that should sit nearer the start of his international arc than its peak, a chance to bank tournament experience behind the more established wide men.

Squad depth at centre-back, the third or fourth name in a unit where Lindelöf, Hien and Starfelt are ahead of him — a steady, unflashy defender who plays his club football at Burnley in the English second tier. At 27 he is in his prime by age if not by profile, his dozen caps the mark of a player who has hovered around the squad without nailing down a place. His tournament is most likely one of cover, the man Potter turns to if injuries thin the back line rather than one penned into the plan.

A versatile defender who can fill in at centre-back or screen in front of it, and very much on the fringe of the squad — a single cap to his name at 29 tells the story of a late, marginal international whose inclusion owes more to balance and reliability than to a established place in the side. He spent the season in the Bundesliga with FC St. Pauli, useful club form that earned him the call. With little verified beyond that, the honest read is depth: a body for the squad, a man for an emergency, rather than a player Potter expects to lean on.

One of the squad's genuine surprises — Aftonbladet called him the shock of the selection — a 32-year-old left-sided player rewarded for trusted function over reputation, the kind of pick that divided opinion at home as much as the youth omissions did. He plays his football in Cyprus with Pafos, a long way from the Premier League stage of his Watford years, which marks this as the late, unexpected coda of a well-travelled career. With 33 caps and five goals he brings experience to the left flank as cover for Gudmundsson; that Potter chose his steadiness over a younger, flashier option is precisely the philosophy that has split the country, and in all likelihood this is his last tournament.

The youngest member of the projected eleven and the one carrying the most responsibility relative to his years — at 20 he is the left side of the double pivot, the carrier asked to drive the ball out of a deep block and through the lines to feed Gyökeres and Isak, a load made heavier by Kulusevski's absence, which has left Sweden without a natural creator anywhere else. A season at Tottenham brought 23 Premier League appearances, 11 of them starts, with a goal and three assists as he earned minutes against established players, the role still being won rather than owned. He broke through at Euro 2024 and is already, at this age, the midfield the country expects to build its next decade around — the future arriving early. If Sweden's counter clicks he is the one pulling its threads; if the pivot is overrun, the whole plan starves through him.

The ball-winner alongside Bergvall, the one who screens the back three, recycles possession and starts the break that springs the forwards — and at 22 he arrives off the best midfield season any Swede in the squad can show, three goals and three assists in 29 Premier League appearances for Brighton, 20 of them starts. That return gives Sweden a midfield bite they have lacked since the Andersson years, and the trajectory is firmly upward: an established starter at a serious club entering his first World Cup with everything still ahead of him. The frame is slight and bigger midfields can try to lean on him, but the engine is real, and this is exactly the kind of stage on which a player of his profile, still short of household recognition, makes his name.

The senior, more conservative midfield option — a 27-year-old in his peak years with 39 caps and a settled place in the Bundesliga at Wolfsburg, where two goals from central midfield filled out a steady season. In a pivot that projects as Bergvall and Ayari, his role is the experienced alternative: the man Potter can introduce to add control and security if the younger pair are overrun or a lead needs protecting. Neither a certain starter nor a passenger, he is the rotation depth a tournament squad needs in the middle, and at his age this is a tournament to be relied upon rather than to break out at.

A deep-lying, defensively minded midfielder who offers Potter a more cautious shade in the pivot, the kind of player brought in to hold a shape rather than to make things happen. At 30, with 24 caps and a season in Serie A at Udinese, he is in the veteran stretch of his career, valued for positional discipline over flair. His tournament is most likely one of squad depth and game-management cameos — a steadying option from the bench rather than a man written into the first eleven.

The most intriguing of the depth midfielders on the numbers alone — three goals and six assists in just 765 minutes for Union Saint-Gilloise in Belgium, the best creative return rate in the entire squad, even if limited Sweden minutes mark him as an option rather than a fixture. At 23 he sits among the side's emerging names, a player whose club form hints at more than his seven caps yet suggest. With Kulusevski gone and creativity at a premium, he is the kind of name Swedish observers will wonder about should the attack stall; for now his World Cup looks like one of bench impact and a foot in the door for the cycles to come.

The squad's bolt from the Allsvenskan — a wide, left-sided creator whose domestic numbers were eye-catching enough to earn the call, with a flurry of goals and assists and chance-creation figures near the top of his league in the early Swedish season at Mjällby. At 23 and yet to win a senior cap, he is the rawest member of the group, a near-miss who made it, picked on form and upside. This is a tournament to be in the room for rather than expected on the pitch; the experience itself is the reward, and the proving ground comes later.

The reason this Sweden side is dangerous at all. Powerful, direct and built to run onto balls played into the space a retreating defence leaves behind, he is the central striker who pins the last line, attacks the penalty spot and finishes the breaks Sweden's whole plan is designed to manufacture. His first season at Arsenal after the move from Sporting brought 14 goals in 36 Premier League appearances, a goal rate that survived the step up in level, capped by a Champions League final on 30 May that delayed his arrival into the Sweden camp — a complication, since the entire side now leans on a partnership with Isak that has had almost no time to rehearse. At 28 he is squarely in his peak, the finisher this generation lacked and a worthy heir to the country's lineage of charismatic centre-forwards, though built on running and power rather than the swagger of Larsson or Ibrahimovic. He scored against Greece in the only outing the two strikers have shared; what he does in Monterrey and beyond will define how far this team can go, and at his age this is the World Cup that should sit at the centre of his international story.

The most valuable footballer Sweden possess, and after a stop-start year the variable that decides how dangerous the attack really is — a forward who drifts into the left channel to link play, drop between the lines and arrive late, two-footed and gliding, capable of dropping deep or running the channel. The season was a disrupted one: a move to Liverpool interrupted by injury and a virus left him with around three goals in 14 Premier League outings, eight of them starts, a world away from his Newcastle peak, though he scored against Norway and started against Greece to suggest the sharpness is returning. At 26 he is in his prime and stands as the finest Swedish talent since Zlatan walked away, the name the country has hung its hopes on; the wrinkle is that pairing him with Gyokeres asks him to share a role he usually owns outright, a partnership with all of one start behind it. If he is sharp, Sweden carry a ceiling few mid-tier nations can match; if not, half the plan loses its point.

The straight-line pace of the front line, the man whose job is the simplest and most lethal in the side — turn one good pass into a sprint nobody can catch, running in behind on the right where Kulusevski's absence has stripped away the natural creator. His season at Newcastle was a curious one: 32 appearances but only 14 starts and a goal drought that left him with no league goals and a single assist, the numbers down even as the pace that defines him stays irreplaceable to Potter's transition plan. At 24 he is into a third tournament cycle already and entering his peak years, a player who contributed to the playoff push and now anchors a right-sided attack built around his running rather than his end product. With the creativity gone from that flank, Sweden need his runs to be the threat; whether the finishing returns to match them is the open question of his tournament.

The option if Potter blinks on the two-striker gamble and reverts to one forward with more midfield behind — an attacking midfielder who operates between the lines and was the man chosen in that role in some of the camp's thinking, the closest thing to a replacement for Kulusevski's right-sided link play. At 24 he is in the emerging tier of the squad, his game built on intelligence between the lines rather than pace, with ten caps and three international goals and a season at Celtic that brought goals from that advanced midfield berth. His first World Cup is most likely one of impact from the bench and a tactical lever for Potter, valuable precisely because he offers a different shape to the bold front pairing.

A wide forward who came through spring fitness problems to make the squad and started on the flank against Greece, offering width and directness from the bench as an alternative to Elanga on the right. At 27 he is a peak-age squad player rather than a star, his football this season in Germany with Holstein Kiel, his ten caps the record of a useful international who has never quite become a fixture. His tournament reads as rotation depth in the wide areas — a man Potter can call on to freshen the attack rather than one penned into the eleven.

The squad's contrasting centre-forward — a towering target man, nearly two metres tall, who offers Potter a different kind of striker should a game need a focal point to aim at, and who took his chance in the camp by scoring against Greece. At 29 he is a late-flowering international, his nine caps modest, his standing built on a productive season at Club Brugge in Belgium. With Gyokeres and Isak ahead of him, his tournament is one of depth and a specific late-game weapon; that he found the net in the final friendly is the kind of timely reminder that keeps a back-up striker relevant.

The other selection that raised eyebrows at home, picked on Allsvenskan form with Malmo over bigger and more familiar names — a wide attacker rewarded, like Ken Sema, for trusted function rather than reputation, and proof that Potter's controversial omissions were about role security as much as anything. He repaid the faith at once, assisting Nilsson's goal against Greece. At 27, with a single cap before this camp, he is a late and unlikely arrival on the international stage, and a first World Cup is a reward few would have forecast for him a year ago. His tournament is squad depth in the wide areas, but his inclusion is part of the story of how this squad was built.