We’re in the time of the World Cup cycle where national teams start to announce their final squads for the upcoming tournament in USA, Mexico, and Canada. Today, Sweden announced its World Cup squad and there’s good news and bad news — the good news is that Lucas Bergvall was named in Graham Potter’s final World Cup squad (and yes, it still feels weird to type “Graham Potter’s World Cup squad”). The bad news is that Dejan Kulusevski was left out.
I’m trying hard not to overreact to this news, but leaving Deki out likely means that he’s still not anywhere close to ready to come back from his shattered patella injury last spring. Deki hasn’t kicked a ball in (now, officially) more than a year since Marc Guehi put his studs through his knee on May 10, 2025 in a match against Crystal Palace. So in that sense it’s not a surprise, since Deki hasn’t really earned his place. But it also makes you wonder just how much longer Deki will be out… or if he’ll be able to make a full recovery at all.
It’s great for Bergvall, though. While he hasn’t turned into Martin Odegaard 2.0 in the past year the way I hoped, he’s still young and a useful player to have on the Spurs squad, and I think he’s definitely earned his place for Sweden. I kinda doubt he’ll get off the bench much during the World Cup, but just being named is a pretty significant achievement for a 20-year-old. And hey, maybe he makes The Leap this summer and comes back ready to be a midfield world-beater next season!
Sweden have a tough group after being drawn with the Netherlands, Japan, and Tunisia. They open their World Cup account on June 14 against Tunisia in Guadalupe, Mexico.
