The unlikely story of the first English manager to reach a World Cup final

George Raynor led Sweden to Olympic glory and a World Cup final, but he was never appreciated back home

By The Set Pieces

Nobody wanted him. An ambitious young English coach who was bursting with new ideas grew more and more frustrated as his efforts to land a job in his homeland fell flat. Application after application came to nothing, his reputation as a lower-league player meaning he rarely received a reply. But then came hope. A new opportunity opened up in Sweden. It was a relative football outpost, but it was the foothold the coach had been craving. George Raynor was finally going to be a football manager.

Raynor’s big break in 1946 has a few parallels to the path that Graham Potter has taken in management. Potter is unlikely to win an Olympic gold medal or lead Sweden to the World Cup final but that was not the aim for Raynor either. Swedish football was very different when Raynor took the job in the 1940s. The domestic league maintained a staunch amateur philosophy that extended to the national side.