{"id":499299,"date":"2026-06-14T13:55:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T13:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/499299\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T13:55:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T13:55:10","slug":"fifa-world-cup-2026-can-germany-netherlands-join-scotland-as-european-winners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/499299\/","title":{"rendered":"Fifa World Cup 2026: Can Germany &#038; Netherlands join Scotland as European winners"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Why Sweden boss Potter is &#8216;super grateful&#8217;published at 12:54 BST<\/p>\n<p>12:54 BST<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-fxb76l-Paragraph e14e9ror4\">Sweden v Tunisia (Mon, 03:00 BST)<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1l98ssq-Contributor etflsgg2\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/876368ce-0d0c-47c6-91e4-052ab4f609f6.jpg.webp\" width=\"64\" height=\"64\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Sweden<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Graham Potter\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1e58591e-6c9f-4d10-8ad7-5586b73a47ee.jpg.webp\"  width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, Getty Images<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sweden are set for their opening World Cup match against Tunisia in Monterrey (Monday, 03:00 BST) but it has been a long and winding road to get here for the team and coach Graham Potter. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sweden finished bottom of their qualifying group and needed a Nations League play-off lifeline to make it to the finals. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Potter, meanwhile, was only drafted in to replace Jon Dahl Tomasson as Sweden boss in October, just a month after being sacked by West Ham.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 51-year-old Englishman started out from humble beginnings as a manager, earning his break with Swedish minnows Ostersund before roles at Swansea, Brighton, Chelsea and West Ham, yet now finds himself on the cusp of his first World Cup game. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;If somebody had said to me when I started out coaching a bunch of students at Leeds Met University that I would end up via the fourth division in Swedish football here at the World Cup, of course I would have taken that journey. It&#8217;s incredible,&#8221; he told reporters in Saturday&#8217;s pre-match news conference. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;So now I&#8217;m just at a point where I&#8217;m super-grateful, super-grateful for the career I&#8217;ve had, for the life I&#8217;ve had, and to be here now.&#8221; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Why Sweden boss Potter is &#8216;super grateful&#8217;published at 12:54 BST 12:54 BST Sweden v Tunisia (Mon, 03:00 BST)&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":499300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-499299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}