Hva' gør vi nu, lille du? : A qualitative analysis of columns about former national team head coach Jon Dahl Tomasson, in relation to the Swedish men´s national football qualification for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

This study examines how Swedish sports columnists portray the national football team coach Jon Dahl Tomasson during the opening matches of Sweden's qualification campaign for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. As the first foreign head coach of the Swedish men’s national team, Tomasson represents a unique and symbolically charged figure within Swedish football culture. Through a qualitative text analysis of columns published in Aftonbladet and Expressen, the study explores how language, imagery, and narrative structures are used to construct meaning around national identity, responsibility, and belonging. The theoretical framework is based on framing theory, the concept of opinion journalism, and Stuart Hall’s part of representation theory, the structure of the other. The results show that the framing of Jon Dahl Tomasson shifts over time, from being depicted as an idealistic leader to becoming a symbol of failure. Through value-laden language, irony, and rhetorical contrasts, journalists gradually position Jon Dahl Tomasson outside the Swedish collective identity. The visual material further reinforces this exclusion, using compositional and emotional cues that signal distance and isolation. The Study highlights how sports journalism not only reports on sports events but also plays an active role in shaping cultural understandings of Swedishness and national identity.