STOCKHOLM, April 1 (Reuters) - 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 possibility of a playoff thanks to Sweden's victory in Nations League Group C, a route to the World Cup offered to group winners of that tournament who finished outside the top two in their World Cup qualifying groups.
NEW GAME PLAN
Drawn against Ukraine and set to face either Poland or Albania if they won, Potter and his staff set about creating a game plan the Swedish players could deliver.
Out went Tomasson's complex man-to-man marking and in came simpler concepts of zonal defence. Injuries to Dejan Kulusevski and Alexander Isak may have robbed him of two of the country's great attacking talents, but the presence of Viktor Gyokeres made the attacking plan easy - get the ball to him, and let him do the rest.
Gyokeres delivered, scoring a hat-trick to dismiss Ukraine and popping up in the 88th minute of an otherwise anonymous display to smash home the winner and send his side to the finals in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
Asked what he felt in that moment, Potter smiled.
"That I'm having some sort of out-of-body experience, to be honest - I'm looking at the goal and then all of a sudden, like, most of our bench is running onto the pitch. I'm like, 'what's going on?'" he said.
"And then you're just thinking, am I here? It's just one of those moments that you're just thankful for, to be part of and to experience. Obviously, I'll always be grateful for that."
Booed by their fans before he took over, Potter's team is transformed in the public eye as they prepare to meet the Netherlands, Japan and Tunisia in their World Cup group.
"I love Swedish football. I love Sweden. I'm forever grateful for what it's given me and the opportunities it's given me. To be part of it tonight was just a huge honour, a huge honour. It's nice to be able to contribute to something good," Potter said with his sons dressed in Sweden jerseys.
"Swedish fans can enjoy the Swedish summer now with the World Cup, and I'm sure there will be a couple of beers drunk."
(Reporting by Philip O'Connor, editinfg by Ed Osmond)
