It’s the men’s international break, reducing the focus on club football for a couple of weeks. It can be challenging for federation decision makers to assess national team performance and the underlying drivers of this performance, because of the relatively small number of games

Our Underachieving National Teams rankings cut through this. Sweden’s men have endured difficult qualifying draws and missed out on the last two major tournaments, but our analysis indicates they are still underperforming their long-term level by 17%. This is not just an existing team issue, it’s structural: Swedish players aged 16-20 accumulate less playing time and at a lower level than Dutch, Norwegian and Danish players.

Similar challenges exist for other national teams across the men’s and women’s game; federations must avoid the urge to think that all performance issues can be solved with a change of head coach.