Anthony Elanga's wild ride from golazo to tears to elation: Sweden moves on in World Cup

ARLINGTON, TX — There was no reason for Anthony Elanga to fall to the ground. Not in stoppage time of Sweden's 1-1 draw with Japan, when he was pushing forward for a winning goal and went down with a cramp. Not after the final whistle when he looked exasperated.

Sweden is into the next round of the World Cup, even if Elanga didn't know it.

Soon after he was peeled off the grass in North Texas, he was beaming and holding the Man of the Match trophy for his absolute stunner of a goal from where the two lines of the box meet. The thrill of drawing, the agony of momentarily thinking you'd lost it all.

"That explains a few things, then," Sweden manager Graham Potter said between chuckles in his post-match news conference when told of Elanga's confusion. "It couldn’t have been any clearer for him, so he’s obviously thinking about something else. Bless him. I love him at the moment, but dear me."

Potter certainly will give Elanga plenty of love this week because without his goal it's not clear if Sweden would've found a breakthrough. Instead of knowing they'd go through with four points, it would've been a nervt Friday and Saturday, wondering how many things would need to go right to push Sweden through as one of the third-place qualifiers.

Instead, it was a quick trip north to the team's base camp in Frisco, Texas where preparation will begin with Elanga getting back on the training ground to rip more of those shots.

"It’s more instinctive. You train on things like this every single day, and I think the coach will tell you this is something I work on every single day," he said of his left-footed strike. "When you’re in situations like that, it’s more about focusing on the contact more than the shot. I feel like I got good contact on the shot.

"Of course, I’m happy it went in because it set the tone of the game, and I think we had the momentum to the end of the game and could’ve created more opportunities to score. Listen, we’ll take the positives of this game and focus on the next game now."

It's a moment that certainly can be laughed off, and perhaps one that fans welcomed. As the tournament progresses, the teams whose matches are later can be more and more aware of their situations. That sometimes leads to teams playing conservatively rather than chasing the game, as most players on both Sweden and Japan did for the final 15 minutes or so of the match in North Texas.

The permutations for this group were brutal. Top the group, and you see 2022 World Cup semifinalist and 2026 African runner-up Morocco. Finish second? It's a date with Brazil. That's the fate that befell Japan, which will watch with envy as teams on the other side of the bracket square off with mid-tier European or African opposition as Asia's strongest team in qualification meets the South American power.

So, while Sweden will face either France or Norway, another daunting game in a tournament already full of them for Sweden since that opening-day thrashing of cellar-dwelling Tunisia, the opponent doesn't matter all that much. What matters is that they're through and have a chance, like any other team in the round of 32.

"When you play a World Cup, you’re going to face very good nations sooner or later," said goalkeeper Jacob Widell Zetterström, who made a pair of superb saves in his first World Cup start after Potter benched Kristoffer Nordfeldt. "No matter who you play, you can’t look too much at the opposition. You have to do what you can do as a group."

Sweden didn't look like much of a group in its second match, a 5-1 loss to the Netherlands. Dutch forward Brian Brobbey had a double within 20 minutes and Sweden was down 4-0 before the hour mark, without ever getting into the game.

That led Potter to not only swap goalkeepers but also to move Victor Lindelöf into the midfield and brought Elliot Stroud into the starting XI on the left. Even with center back Isak Hien going off in the first half because of a muscle injury, the changes largely ended up being positive. Sweden was able to weather a storm of Japanese chances.

The goal saw Ritsu Doan slice a pass through the Sweden back line for Daizen Maeda, but Maeda had other chances from close range, as did left wingback Keito Nakamura, who lived in Sweden's final third and created two chances plus put a shot on goal of his own.

"We had to look at the things we didn’t do maybe quite as well in the last game and learned from it," Widell Zetterström said. "I think this game we worked slightly more as a unit, we were more compact and, well, I think in the end we had a very good defensive game."

Good enough to fluster Kylian Mbappe or Erling Haaland? That may depend on Hein's fitness and Potter's plan for the team to bounce back. Few analysts will have Sweden going through from its round of 32 tie, but the team is there.

The tears can wait.