Potter's career night delivers World Cup promised land for resurgent Sweden

STOCKHOLM, April 1 : With his sons seated in the front row of the press conference after his Sweden side beat Poland 3-2 with a dramatic late goal to reach the World Cup finals, coach Graham Potter basked in the glow of success in what had looked like an impossible task when he took it on last October. 

Jon Dahl Tomasson had been sacked four games into a disastrous six-game World Cup qualifying campaign that left his team with one point and only a slim hope of a playoff through the Nations League path.

Englishman Potter took over, grabbing the last remaining thread of hope and spinning gold from it. 

"It's the best night of my life and I've had some wonderful nights, you know, stories with (Swedish club) Ostersund and European adventures and Champions League, Premier League wins, but this just feels like more,"  Potter told reporters. 

"You can feel the atmosphere in the ground. It's very rarely you go to football places and feel that. I think whenyou're a national team ... you're working for more than yourself, so when you add all that up and then put the context of the game and the environment and the atmosphere, it was just a special moment."

When the final whistle went, the anthem of the 1994 World Cup in which the Swedes finished third boomed out of the stadium speakers, with players and fans alike joining in the joyous chorus of "When We Dig for Gold in the USA". 

Potter's seven-year spell at Ostersund helped make his name in coaching and led him to bigger clubs such as Brighton & Hove Albion, Chelsea and West Ham United in England's Premier League, but it also gave him a love of grassroots Swedish football that led him to his job as head coach of the national team.

The only chance Potter had when he took over was the