Mark Langdon: 175-1 Sweden could become World Cup dark horses

The dark nights have well and truly set in, the temperature has dropped from acceptable to freezing in just a few days and it's impossible to escape the C word being used with frightening regularity as advertisers go earlier and earlier with their Christmas promotions.

Winter is here and it's at times like this that a nice ante-post project is well worth considering to get you dreaming of brighter times to come. The plan had been to tip MK Dons each-way for League Two at 10-1, but that might be worth keeping on the backburner because there is a potential World Cup dark horse floating around at 175-1 and backing Sweden to win the 2026 World Cup could keep the fun alive for the next 16 months, never mind six weeks.

Sweden will be in pot two for the European section of World Cup qualifying, so they have a fair chance of progressing out of a notoriously competitive continent, with the expansion to 16 Uefa teams making it through to the finals helping somewhat. 

Trends followers might remember Sweden thrived the last time the World Cup was in USA – they reached the semi-finals with Martin Dahlin, Tomas Brolin, Thomas Ravelli and co – but there are more logical reasons for believing the Scandinavians could become lively dark horses with the competition not yet on the radar of most football fans.

Sweden took Nations League Group C by storm, finishing three points clear of Slovakia, who were just seconds away from knocking England out of the Euros this summer, and almost out of nowhere coach Jon Dahl Tomasson has a front three which will strike fear into even the world's best teams.

Only Cole Palmer and Erling Haaland scored more goals than Alexander Isak in last season's Premier League and, after a slow start this term, Newcastle's main man has notched in each of his last four matches to highlight why he was being linked with elite European clubs in the summer.

Isak, though, has to play second fiddle up front to the remarkable Viktor Gyokeres, who may well have been a rare misstep by Brighton in the transfer market. They did well to identify him in the first place, but having grown in stature at Coventry, he has turned into a phenomenon at Sporting.

Given he has done most of his best work in the Championship and then Portugal, it is difficult to know just how good Gyokeres is, but the recent hat-trick against Manchester City in the Champions League caught the eye, as did his four-goal haul against Azerbaijan at the start of the week.

Gyokeres has scored ten goals in seven caps for Sweden in 2024 and improved his Sporting goal ratio this season despite notching 43 times in 50 appearances last term. He has 23 in 18 games this season, finding the net 16 times in 11 league appearances, and a further five in the Champions League to show this 26-year-old is not just a flat-track bully.

Maybe this is the limit, but what if it's not? With Gyokeres and Isak in attack and Dejan Kulusevski supplying the creativity, Tomasson has landed on something quite eyecatching. 

Kulusevski is having a fine season for Tottenham – nobody has made more key passes in the Premier League and he is one off the divisional best in the shot-creating action statistic – and if Manchester City want a long-term replacement for Kevin De Bruyne they could do a lot worse than the supremely-skilled Swede.

With Kulusevski behind Isak and Gyokeres it might be the right time to make a song and dance about these Swedish smash hits. Gimme, gimme, gimme some of the 175-1.