Elanga had nothing to lose.<\/p>\n
Sweden were 4-0 down against the Netherlands when the substitute entered the fray in his side’s second group game at the World Cup.<\/p>\n
The 24-year-old needed just four minutes to score after racing through and finishing off a blistering counter-attack.<\/p>\n
Elanga took that momentum into his next game against Japan as a starter, cutting inside and letting fly with a curling effort to draw Sweden level.<\/p>\n
Sweden would ultimately bow out in the last 32 following a 3-0 defeat against France, but Elanga again emerged with some credit, with the tournament offering a glimpse of what the rapid forward can provide.<\/p>\n
“He’s the kind of player that can change a game,” former Newcastle<\/a> and Sweden team-mate Emil Krafth said.<\/p>\n Elanga showed that at Nottingham Forest<\/a>, but clearly found it a challenge adapting to a new detailed system at Newcastle<\/a>, even after a full pre-season.<\/p>\n There were flashes of the player he can be.<\/p>\n There was a double in the Nou Camp in the Champions League knockout stages.<\/p>\n He caused Liverpool<\/a> and Barcelona’s defences real problems with his pace in games at St James’ Park, only for a team-mate to fail to put away his crosses.<\/p>\n It did not consistently come together, though, not least when Newcastle<\/a> faced low blocks, and there were some bruising moments following his \u00a355m move.<\/p>\n But the Swede is not about to give up.<\/p>\n “He’s not got the mental capacity to allow himself to fail,” a source close to Elanga said.<\/p>\n Elanga does not have to look too far into the past for inspiration.<\/p>\n Although Anthony Gordon had prior experience of playing in the Premier League, it also took the winger time to adapt at Newcastle<\/a> after joining the club from Everton<\/a> in 2023.<\/p>\n Such was Gordon’s intense desire to impress, he constantly asked those around him in the dressing room about what he needed to improve.<\/p>\n Gordon became more responsible with the ball, made better decisions in the final third and started to flourish following a confidence-boosting tournament with England Under-21s at their Euros.<\/p>\n Krafth can see parallels with Elanga.<\/p>\n “I think the second season for Anthony is going to be different,” he said. <\/p>\n “He knows what he’s going to come into. He’s a bit more prepared and knows what the manager wants from him.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elanga had nothing to lose. Sweden were 4-0 down against the Netherlands when the substitute entered the fray…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-671588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}