Sweden coach Erik Hamren has revealed that he will be taking time off from football after having announced his exit from the national team.

He leaves Sweden’s national football team after seven years in charge. During this period, he has overseen qualification to back-to-back European championships. Sweden not only qualified for the Euro 2012 but they repeated the feat with the Euro 2016. The latter was especially not successful given that the team failed to get into the knockout stages of the competition as they finished bottom of the group even with striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic on board.

Over the years, Hamren has been in charge of 70 games and he has an extremely good record by winning 40 out of these matches. He was not convinced about another major tournament with the national team, as he announced even before the Euro 2016 that this would be his last tournament with the Sweden national team. There are signs that the 58-year-old could announce his retirement from management, as he has stated that he will take an indefinite break from football for the time being.Hamren spoke about the disappointment of not having done well at the Euro 2016. He says that a return of just one point from three matches is simply not acceptable for a team like Sweden.

“One point in three matches is something I’m obviously not happy with, but we deserved more. I feel strongly about a break. If something turns up that is impossible to say no to it might be different. I’ve turned down some offers.I’m going home to Sweden to bury myself for a while. It’s going to be tough, I feel that already.I’m going to need some love and understanding from those closest to me, as I’m not going to be too pleasant for a while,” said Hamren.