One Tottenham star admits that he and his international teammates have to deal with a lot of unwarranted criticism over the last 12 months, and admits they are delighted to shut up the naysayers.
It was a new low for Sweden last year when they failed to qualify for the European championship and that has predictably led to wholesale changes in the set-up, with Jon Dahl Tomasson taking over.
The former Newcastle United midfielder has completely revamped the squad since arriving, with several young players being brought into the set-up, including Tottenham‘s very own Lucas Bergvall.
He is now building a team around a new core, with Dejan Kulusevski very much in the heart of it, and the Scandinavian side have looked extremely formidable over recent months.
This new-look Sweden side, which is full of budding stars like Kulusevski, Hugo Larsson, Viktor Gyokeres, Alexander Isak and others, were dominant across the Nations League campaign.
They ended it with a 6-0 thrashing of Azerbaijan in Stockholm, a result which ensured that they finished top of League C, Group 1, and confirmed their promotion to League B for the next edition of the competition.
When asked how the squad felt about the criticism a few months ago, Kulusevski told Fotbollskanalen after the win over Azerbaijan: “You are hungry. Everyone on this team wants to silence a lot of people, I think. There’s been a lot of nonsense.
“There has been too much nonsense and too many people talking. So, it comes from there too. You want to silence people. Sometimes it hurts when we play well, and that’s something you like as a player. To go out and enjoy your football and show how good you are.”
The Tottenham man was in a combative mood after the final whistle, even accusing some critics of enjoying sticking the knife into the national team.
When asked what sort of criticism he was exactly referring to, the Tottenham man responded: “You know that for sure. You know better than me. You know that. It’s two years. Tough year. But when it’s tough, you see people. How they enjoy it. And it’s fun for me.
“Because later when it turns around, I want to hear them too. Because it’s easy to talk when things have been tough, but when things look like this, maybe it’s harder to comment.”
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