The Isak-Gyokeres conundrum that Graham Potter must solve to fire Sweden at the World Cup | OneFootball

Sweden have boasted enviable strikeforces before. Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Henrik Larsson dovetailed to great effect at Euro 2004 and should have gone further than a quarter-final exit to Netherlands on penalties. Sweden’s great post-war team was led by the AC Milan trio known as “Gre-No-Li” – Gren, Nordahl and Liedholm – who together won gold at the 1948 Olympics in London.

They have another potentially elite partnership in 2026, one that points to a strange paradox of this modern Sweden side. They are truly one of the worst teams at the World Cup, a team who were flattened in qualifying, who broke through the back door of the play-offs only because they were so bad, they had slipped down to Nations League C and were able to dominate a group of Slovakia, Estonia and Azerbaijan to book their spot.

And yet they have arguably the best pair of strikers at the tournament. Spain would happily trade one of their many technical midfielders for a player of Alexander Isak’s ilk. Germany would be a whole different proposition with a Viktor Gyokeres in their ranks. Portugal… well, them too.

And so the task of recent Sweden managers is straightforward, but not simple. How do you get the best out of Gyokeres and Isak, on the same pitch, at the same time?

Jon Dahl Tomasson managed it in that soft Nations League group, sometimes deploying the pair together as strikers and at other times dropping Isak back into the No 10 role. Gyokeres scored nine goals in those six games and Isak managed four.

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Isak and Gyokeres will start together at the World Cup (Getty)

But Tomasson could not produce the same results in World Cup qualifying and he was sacked, the first Swedish manager ever to suffer that fate. Isak and Gyokeres could not find the same form and Sweden’s campaign crumbled. They both started the key game at home to Kosovo, but Sweden slumped to humiliating defeat.

While the Swedish media focused on their Danish manager, social media focused its criticism on a star player. Isak’s summer playing transfer games with Newcastle ultimately provoked the Liverpool move he so badly wanted. But it also impacted his national team’s World Cup qualifying campaign.

After spending the entirety of Newcastle’s preseason on the picket line, Isak completed his life-changing transfer to Liverpool for £125m on deadline day, so it is safe to assume his mind wasn’t necessarily on dismantling Slovenia in a qualifier four days later. Tomasson chose to leave Isak on the bench – much to the delight of Liverpool manager Arne Slot – and Slovenia pinched a point with a 90th-minute equaliser. A fully fit Isak would have been one of the best players on the pitch, and it is not much of a stretch to imagine he would have been a game-changer in a match of fine margins.

Tomasson’s replacement, Graham Potter, has barely had to consider the idea since taking the reins last October. Isak’s fitness issues ensured the pair did not play together until now. Gyokeres was outstanding without his partner, scoring a hat-trick in the play-off semi-finals before bundling home a dramatic winner to sink Poland and send a gripped nation into a state of delirium.

When they finally played together in a World Cup warm-up game earlier this month, for the first time in a year, Sweden drew 2-2 with Greece. Potter deployed a 3-5-2 formation with Isak and Gyokeres together up front, and the latter scored Sweden’s first goal of the game.

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Sweden's star attacking duo together in the warm-up (Getty)

Potter insists their skillsets complement one another. “I think they’re different in their styles, which is good for us,” he said last month. “If you think of how Viktor played in Portugal [for Sporting CP], a lot on the last line, he’s incredible attacking big spaces. Alex … if we look at his time at Newcastle, he played a little bit wider and also played as a 10.”

Sweden’s first World Cup game is against Tunisia in Monterrey on Sunday night, before encounters with Japan and the Netherlands in perhaps the most competitive group in the tournament.

“I wouldn’t replace them with anyone,” said the captain, Victor Lindelof, this week. “I’m really happy to have the two of ‌them. I’m trying to go through in my mind what other countries there are (that have a similar partnership), but I think they are two top-class ‌forwards, so it’s amazing to have ⁠them on our team.”

Among their supporting cast is Brighton midfielder Yasin Ayari, who has established himself in the heart of the Swedish side.

“They are two of the best in the world,” Ayari said. “They have been showing it now on the big stages for a long time. I’m happy they’re on my team, it’s going to be fun … They work together quite well, they are similar but at the same time not similar, they have different qualities. We know what we need to do to make them shine.”