Sweden wont make it to the Soccer World Cup next year. The results in the World Cup qualifiers have been poor, and Sweden´s out of the World Cup for the first time since 1986. What are the reasons to the failure? Was the motivation lost ? It all looked good for Sweden as they were drawn into one of the weakest World Cup qualifier groups in Europe. The most dangerous opponents in the group were Scotland and Austria, two nations that shouldn´t be able to give Sweden a serious fight for the first spot. After all, we are dealing with the bronze-medalists from 1994 here. After missing the European championship in England, Sweden prepared for their revenge, and nothing was going to stop them. Lack of Magic It all started well, a 5-1 win against Belarus, and the Swedish team redeemed the expectations. But then things started to get out of hand, and the public began to realize that the magic from USA was as disappeared. Most of all it was the offense that didn´t produce as much as expected. The opponents had developed greater respect for the Swedish team, and as a result they played on counter attacks when they had to match up against Sweden. This became a problem for the Swedes as Swedish teams in generel aren´t very successful in dominating games. The individual players didn't really manage to perform as expected. For many it had been harder to remain a regular in their respective teams. After the World Cup-success in 1994 many of the players had moved to foreign clubs with a tougher internal competition. There's also the possibility that the Swedish players were quite satisfied with the bronze-medal and it became harder to find the motivation. The Regrowth But is that all? Aren't there anything else that could be responsible for the Swedish failure? How about the youth activity, has there been any reinforcements to add to the old '94 line-up? Sadly, the answer to that question has to be no. We're still going around with the same team as we did three years ago, the additions have been few. Skillful midfielder Per Zetterberg is a good strenghtening to the team, but except him, there've been the same old players in the team year after year. Is it possible that new sports, such as floorball, has stolen young talents from the soccer youthactivity ? After all, there has been an explosion of new sports coming to Sweden during the 90th. We brought up these theories with one of the best soccer youth coaches in the neighbourhood, Dick Näslund. He did oppose to these hypotheses: - Indeed there has been an addition of new sports lately, but it hasn't had any affect on the general interest for soccer, Dick says. Instead he thought that such new sports as floorball mostly have invited youngsters who'd earlier been sportingly inactive. Religion and Tradition Overall Dick is of the opinion that the Swedish soccer team won't be able to compete with other European countries in an forseeable future. There's even the doubt that Sweden ever again will become as good as in 1994. After all, unlike Italy and England, soccer isn't religion in Sweden. We haven't got the same proud soccer traditions as many other European nations. These are the factors that Mr Näslund would like to point out as conclusive for the Swedish failure. We shouldn´t expect too much, after all Sweden is a small country, we have to live with some up and downs. We should look at the World Cup in USA as something really special, it´ll only happen once in a lifetime for a nation like Sweden. Johan Allard, SP2a. Niklas Hägglund, SP2a. Herman Johnson, NvDa2c