A huge job to be done with minimal preparation. It starts here at the Parador de El Saler, along the coast south of Valencia.
The golf course adjacent to the hotel looks enticingly green with the Mediterranean Sea in the background.
But there the tourists have to hack their way through.
"We are not here to shop or play golf. We are here to win the match against Ukraine," says the national team manager ahead of the playoff semi-final.
Injury-free squad
All the players had checked in or were on their way when Potter posted about what to expect in the next few days. He wrote about the importance of the match, about what a "gift" it is to play in a "final" but also about the anxiety he felt on Sunday, when most of the players were on the move.
When asked if he was nervous about getting injured, the answer was:
Yes.
When Potter stepped into the final qualifiers against Switzerland and Slovenia in November, any prospect of reaching the World Cup other than via a playoff was microscopic. So he turned his focus to March. In words and actions. Tactically, he immediately saw the necessity of a more compact, more collective defensive game.
To simplify: In a few days he tried to lay a new foundation on and off the field for a national team that had lost its way under Jon Dahl Tomasson.
It's been a while since the team won regularly. We have to be honest about that. There is room for improvement.
Clear picture of the starting eleven
Being a national team manager means not having enough time. In Valencia, he has only two training sessions to prepare the team.
I have an idea of how we should play, what we should do to win.
I see it as a "fifty-fifty" match. Ukraine has stability, an attacking game with variety. They try to regain the ball quickly or defend deep. They are good at getting the ball in behind the back line, at using width and at hitting crosses.
The training sessions over the next few days are mostly about getting confirmation that he was thinking correctly.
He came to Valencia with a clear picture of which eleven players he would start on Thursday.
Pretty clear. It's about making sure everyone is okay after this weekend's games and then preparing ourselves as best we can, so the players can go out on the field and play a fantastic game.
If Sweden wins against Ukraine, a decisive match awaits at Strawberry Arena on March 31, against Poland or Albania for a World Cup spot.
