Leeds United defender Gabi Gudmundsson is about to begin his World Cup journey for his nation, as they get underway early on Monday morning for viewers within the UK and rest of Europe.

Taking on Tunisia at the Monterrey Stadium, Gudmundsson and his Swedish teammates have been preparing hard whilst in the United States of America, not only looking at their upcoming opponents, but also the weather conditions.

Speaking to leedsunited.com from his temporary home in Dallas, we caught up with the full-back after his first few days away.

“We’re here at our camp in Dallas for training and I am so happy for that,” Gabi began, telling us exclusively about his time away so far.

“Obviously the heat is a big, big topic here, and it's going to be difficult, but it's similar for everyone so we just need to have a better plan.

“We want to be better prepared than the others, and hopefully we can get some results out of that. If you can take advantage of this, you put yourself in the pole position.

“We did some acclimatisation back in Stockholm to work with the sauna and try to acclimatise to the heat, to be a little bit more prepared than if we didn't do anything.

“So hopefully we are prepared in a good way and we have a good plan with what we should do, on and off the pitch.”

In terms of World Ranking, this Group F encounter looks close. Tunisia sit 45th in FIFA’s list, whereas Sweden are 39th. In a competitive group that also houses Netherlands and Ao Tanaka’s Japan, an opening win is important.

“Tunisia is a very strong team defensively, very compact and good in transitions,” Gabi explained, discussing his first opponents.

“So it’s definitely something that we have worked on and looked at on the videos. We have been working on a game plan so hopefully we can execute that very well.

“We know also that if you can start very well in the tournament, we have a good chance to go through, so hopefully we can do that on Monday.

“I'm super, super happy to be back with the national team and even more happy to be back in Dallas here where our base camp is, it’s started to be more real.

“We had a good camp in Stockholm before we arrived here with two tough, but also good friendly games and we feel prepared for what's to come.

“We are super excited for this. Obviously there are many players in the squad, it's the first time in a World Cup, so everybody is super excited for this adventure.”