The Dane's risky game idea crashed completely when the national team lost away to Kosovo with 0–2 on Monday evening.
Does Sweden have the players required to play the football Jon Dahl Tomasson wants? That's the question many are asking. The lack of sufficiently skilled defensive players makes his game idea very gamble-based.
With a strongly forward-leaning lineup, the defensive game becomes vulnerable – something Kosovo smartly and effectively utilized.
A game system is one part of football, then it's also the performance we deliver. You can analyze in many ways. We have made good performances and you can't put everything on the game system.
Not at the level required
But of course, you have to analyze what you can do differently, so that you don't fall into those traps in the future. I think everyone saw that it was a performance that wasn't at the level you need to be at in a World Championship qualification, says Källström.
Is it worth holding on to Dahl Tomasson's revolution of Swedish football when a World Championship is at risk of being missed?
We have missed the World Championship with other game systems. To just put it on a game system is a bit narrow. Then we have to analyze this performance. The leadership team, the players. It's all players' combined performance against all Kosovo players' performance that decides and there they were better than us, says Källström.
Reaching the World Championship extremely important
We believe in Jon as national team captain and in the players we have. Then it's about delivering. We can't just stop here when we've built something up over a period. We can't make changes all the time.
The men's national team has missed two major championships in a row.
It's extremely important for us to go to the World Championship. It's something that changes every nation's football in a positive direction. Of course, we are in a much more difficult situation after this result. At the same time, it's far from over.
It's still alive.
After two out of six matches, the national team is on one point, Switzerland leads with six. Only the group winner goes directly to the finals in North America next summer.
The second place gets to play playoff in March 2026.
Given the shocking result in Pristina, it's reasonable to assume that the national team will have to aim for second place.
Sweden meets Switzerland and Kosovo at home when the World Championship qualification continues in October.
