{"id":33,"date":"2026-03-26T18:04:04","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T18:04:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/?p=33"},"modified":"2026-03-26T18:04:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T18:04:04","slug":"world-cup-play-offs-what-to-look-out-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/?p=33","title":{"rendered":"World Cup play-offs: What to look out for"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Alexander Isak, Viktor Gyokeres and Anthony Elanga.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sweden are not short of talent, yet they face the prospect of not reaching the World Cup.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">They finished bottom of their qualifying group but reached the play-offs by finishing first in their Nations League pool.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Graham Potter&#8217;s side will travel to Valencia to face Ukraine at a neutral ground because of the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">After a tumultuous time managing Chelsea and West Ham, Potter has returned to the country where he first found success.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Potter managed Swedish side Ostersunds FK between 2011 and 2018, leading them to their first Swedish Cup win in 2017.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sweden have not won since Potter took charge, losing 4-1 to Switzerland and drawing 1-1 with Slovenia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Potter is without Isak as he recovers from a broken leg, but Liverpool manager Arne Slot said the striker could return in late March or early April.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alexander Isak, Viktor Gyokeres and Anthony Elanga. Sweden are not short of talent, yet they face the prospect of not reaching the World Cup. They [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}