Potter: Even if we had played perfectly against France, I'm not sure it would have...

The head coach of the Swedish national team, Graham Potter, commented in the match of the 1/16 finals of the 2026 World Cup against France (0:3). "The best team won, congratulations France. I think in terms of the game we had to perform perfectly and even if we did, I'm not sure it would have been enough to be honest because the opposition was of a very high standard. I have no complaints about the players. After the game I told them that I don't think it's a shame to lose to France, they are the best team and they have some top quality players. If you look at the careers and the track record of the French team and compare them to ours, we are a young team on the rise with hopefully a lot of good things ahead of us. I think we had a great tournament, it helped us grow and learn. It was fantastic for the players to recover from the 1-5 loss to the Netherlands and get a much-needed point against Japan (1-1). We have to push back against it. We have more than ten debutants at the World Cup, this is a significant difference from the French team. So we will definitely become better because of it. We have experience, we win, we lose, we grow as a team, as individuals. I think that's how we have to look at today's match," France24 quoted Potter as saying. Available for viewing on media.