Nordic Football News

Scotland Calling For Kujovic

Swedish Under 21 striker Emir Kujovic is the latest Scandinavian been lined up for a move to Scotland.

The Halmstads BK striker has courted interest from abroad and now his agent, Oliver Cabrera, has confirmed that an un named Scottish club have made advances towards his client.

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Celtic capture future stars

Glenn Dowd takes a look at Celtic’s recent raids on the Nordic leagues.

Scottish Premier League club Celtic have this month captured two top defenders from Scandinavia.

Jos Hooiveld was the first to arrive at Parkhead during the transfer window and was quickly followed by Thomas Rogne.
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Transfer Weekly: Djurgårdens IF sign a truckload of Finns and next season spells potential disaster for TPS as Pasi Rautiainen walks out

Djurgårdens IF are on the verge of re-naming the club Djurgårdens SF after signing half the Finnish national team that face South Korea in a week’s time. Kasper Hämäläinen, Joel Perovuo and Joona Toivio teamed up with Jani Lyyski, another fresh signing, and Daniel Sjölund, who is apparently staying at the Stockholm club after all. After escaping disaster by the skin of their teeth last season, DIF are founding their future dominance of Allsvenskan on Finnish talent. The Weekly approves.

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US AIK: Allsvenskan Round 18 roundup

Excuse me, Allsvenskan? I think it’s time we had a talk. Now don’t get upset, because I’m not really complaining. It’s just that the recent results have us worried. We are concerned that you may perhaps be… How do I put this?

You’re absolutely, certifiably insane.

This was after all supposed to be the round where the results felt more or less predetermined. Nothing was supposed to change in the standings as the top five teams all met up with teams they should beat about seven times out of ten. Despite this, we witnessed all top three teams face surprise losses. League leaders Helsingborg suffered defeat at Olympia, Elfsborg lost their first home game and Kalmar’s impressive eight game winning streak was finally busted.

Helsingborg’s loss against Örebro perhaps wasn’t all that surprising. After all, Helsingborg had half a dozen key players missing due to injuries and suspensions. Most of the players that were on hand hardly had enough time to recover from the 120 minute game against FK Sarajevo earlier in the week. But then again, Örebro had been experiencing a bad trend with a couple of tough games in the bag. With that in mind it was certainly still a bit of an upset that the team grabbed the three points.

Elfsborg shared a similar situation as Helsingborg. Anders Svensson and Helgi Danielsson were suspended and James Keene was made unavailable due to a crippling ulcer. Elfsborg also had a Europa League game earlier in the week still in their legs. But to lose against Gefle must be considered a major disaster for Elfsborg. Gefle’s best player from the spring season, Amadou Jawo, was playing his second game for his new club Elfsborg. Jawo proved completely ineffectual. Instead it was the new offensive line in Gefle with ex-AIK player Gerndt, Westlin and Bapupa who stepped up and showed terrific form.

Kalmar on the other hand, has no excuse whatsoever. No significant injuries to speak of, no key players suspended, no European games in the past week and supertalent Rasmus Elm was on hand. Yet they fall against one of the teams with the weakest form in the entire league. Halmstad hadn’t won a game in nine rounds, but now they suddenly looked solid in the back and most importantly they scored goals. Very odd.

But not everything was as zany, of course. Malmö beat Trelleborg and it feels like things are finally beginning to make sense for underachieving Malmö, who is a far better side than the league position lets on. The fact that Wilton Figuereido scored a goal in the game is simply another reason to believe that things might finally get on track for Malmö.

The fact that Djurgården fell to Hammarby in the Anxiety Derby wasn’t a surprise at all. Nor was the fact that Djurgården decided their own fate with a game-losing own goal by Markus Johannesson. Can’t say I didn’t say so. I did expect Hammarby to control proceedings, but that was certainly not the case. But in the end, Djurgården proved bad enough to lose games all on their own and didn’t really need the aid of Hammarby’s erratic offense to lose this one.

AIK supporters can’t complain about this senseless eighteenth round. About halfway into the Novelty Derby against Brommapojkarna it felt like this was going to be a terrible round for Gnaget since BP scored the first goal of the game. But plenty of insanity has occurred since then. When everything is said and done, AIK has passed two teams at the top and is now in third place, one measly point behind current leage leaders IFK Göteborg.

Therefore, I have concluded that you are in fact insane, my dear Allsvenskan. But I won’t hold it against you. At least not for as long as your insanity helps AIK move onwards and upwards. Keep it up you crazy Allsvenskan.

League standings and statistics can be found by following the links on the right side bar of the blog. All the results of the eighteenth round are listed below and you can reach the game highlights by clicking the yellow results.

BK Häcken vs. GAIS 1-0
AIK vs. IF Brommapojkarna 2-1
Trelleborgs FF vs. Malmö FF 0-2
Örgryte IS vs IFK Göteborg 1-2
Djurgårdens IF vs. Hammarby IF 0-1
Halmstads BK vs. Kalmar FF 2-0
Helsingborgs IF vs. Örebro SK 0-1
IF Elfsborg vs. Gefle IF 2-3

Kalmar FF take the driving seat in Allsvenskan

With IFK Götebörg weakened by the departures of Pontus Wernbloom and Mattias Bjärsmyr, Helsinborgs’ new signings still unnamed, and Kalmar FF on the verge of losing Rasmus Elm, it seemed as if the way was paved for Elfsborg to go and win the league. But last night the Borås side lost a chance to secure a six-point lead in the league table. The timing could not have been worse, as their 3-1 defeat came against Kalmar FF, who are now on level terms – 33 points – with Elfsborg, and in the driving seat owing to their better goal difference.

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Allsvenskan transfer update

As July ends so does the ability for Swedish teams to acquire new players. The Swedish transfer window closed this past Tuesday, which allows us the opportunity to review the most significant Allsvenskan signings. It’s been a fairly interesting shopping window for the Swedish clubs with a few foreign additions as well as one major move between Allsvenskan clubs.

AIK made a couple of real quality signings that we’ve discussed previously. Dulee Johnson rejoining AIK was an early bomb in the summer transfer circus that marked the return of one of the most talented footballers that Allsvenskan has seen in recent years. AIK went on to make one of the most intriguing acquisitions of any team in attacker Antonio Flavio from Brazilian Serie A side Santo Andre. The combination of these two players could very well turn out to be the best signings of the summer. But we’ll have to await the final judgment until we actually see how well Antonio Flavio fits in at his new team. Dulee Johnson is already proving an asset to AIK’s midfield and the Liberian will surely continue to deliver.

Elfsborg is currently considered the biggest winner in the transfer market according to most observers. Elfsborg already has a strong and deep squad, and one that is likely to remain intact. Elfsborg further enhanced their imagee as the most serious title contender with the highest profile signing in Allsvenskan. Their purchase of speedy striker Amadou Jawo from Gefle is an impressive signing of one of the hottest prospects in Swedish soccer. A successful Jawo would add speed and talent up top and this could solve Elfsborg’s problems with goal production.

IFK Göteborg lost Pontus Wernbloom and Mattias Bjärsmyr this summer and their replacements hardly appear to reach the same grade. For the offensive midfield position, Göteborg has brought on Icelandic Theodor Elmar Bjarnason. The gap left by Bjärsmyr is filled by Finish defender Tuomo Turunen from FC Honka. It appears that Göteborg might be the only loser in the transfer market so far since the team has been noteably struggling to find its way after losing key player Pontus Wernbloom.

Helsingborgs IF has been on the lookout for a new attacker and were reportedly very close to signing Superettan top scorer Erton Fejzullahu from Mjällby. This deal never closed and Erton ended up signing for Dutch side NEC Nijmegen. Helsingborg has instead signed a yet unnamed foreign attacker. This myster attacker is reportedly a class signing from a large club outside of Europe. This narrows the possibilites down to about 500 players, which makes any speculation pretty pointless until the name is made official sometime in early August.

Hammarby IF was one of the most active buyers in the transfer market early on as they brought home Patrik Gerrbrand and Andreas Dahl. While these two players have added a bit of stability in the back for Hammarby, the loss of Charlie Davies to Sochaux has left Hammarby with a struggling offense. On balance, Hammarby would have needed a quality attacker to take Davies’ place since the two Brazilian attackers that Hammarby has on loan don’t appear ready for prime time. Hammarby supporters were originally enthused by the team’s moves in the transfer market, but they are slowly becoming more disgruntled, particularly after the club inexplicably shipped team captain Mikkel Jensen off to bottom rivals Brommapojkarna.

Djurgårdens IF is one of the teams with the most desperate need for reinforcements. But it was made perfectly clear to the fans that Djurgården is a team in a deep crisis when the only new signings came from feeder-clubs and trial players. 18-year-old left-back Yosif Ayuba was the first signing from Superettan side Vasalund and this was hardly the quality signing the fans had hoped for. This was later followed by the signing of 28-year-old midfielder Stefan Burlin from Skellefteå FF, a team found way down in the Swedish second tier league. Interestingly, the Djurgården leadership talks about the speed or creativity of these players, but you don’t have to be a professional scout to realize that these players will perform below Allsvenskan average even on a good day. The eleventh hour move for Djurgården was to loan an untested Argentinean midfielder found in the bottom of the barrel at River Plate. 19-year-old Leandro Ortiz had a trial run at Djurgården earlier in the summer, but curiously enough Djurgården didn’t choose to sign Ortiz until the final moments of the transfer period. Not a good sign for a team that desperately needs some actual quality on the midfield.

While the transfer window is now closed in Sweden, most of Europe still have their transfer window open until the end of August. This means that Swedish players can still be sold or loaned to foreign clubs. It remains to be seen which players end up leaving Allsvenskan as there are still several hot prospects that are ripe for the picking.

For AIK, the main target for transfer speculations is Ivan Obolo, but no known bids or transfer rumors have popped up in regards to the Argentinean striker. Daniel Örlund has been linked with Norwegian top club Rosenborg in recent weeks, but AIK would be extremely hard pressed to find a replacement goalkeeper at this point with both Maanoja and Bergh injured. As such it’s likely that Örlund stays through the end of the season.

Allsvenskan Round 16: segmentation continues

The sixteenth round mirrored the previous round as we saw eight rematches with the only difference being a flip in home-field advantage. Another similarity was that top teams kept on winning and bottom teams kept on losing. The effect of this is that the trend we noted at the end of the previous round remains perfectly intact: Allsvenskan is becoming clearly separated into three distinct segments consisting of five top, six middle and five bottom teams.

The big winner this week was IF Elfsborg as they took over the top spot from IFK Göteborg, who lost their game away against Trelleborgs FF after having dropped a 1-0 lead during the second half.

IF Elfsborg headed into their game against basement dwellers Djurgården as huge favorites to win. The 3-1 final result in this game suggests that the game turned out to be just the type of cakewalk one would have expected. But in fact, the game was far more interesting than the final score might suggest. As expected, Elfsborg put extreme pressure on Djurgården during the first half and the Borås team lined up countless golden opportunties but failed to show the necessary concentration in front of goal. Somehow it was Djurgården that ended up taking an astonishingly unexpected and undeserved lead via a penalty kick from Daniel Sjölund in the 40th minute.

Djurgården would probably have offered an apology for scoring if asked for one in half time. But somehow the team entered the second half with some spirit and managed to maintain a certain amount of their own passing game and actually came awfully close to scoring a second goal. As the clock ticked away and approached the final ten minutes, one was starting to feel increasingly assured that Djurgården might just pull off the biggest upset of the year. But just as Djurgården had lulled their supporters into a false sense of hope, disaster struck twice and in quick succession as substitute Denni Avdic pulled the equalizer and followed that up by tallying an assist on the turnaround goal scored by youngster Daniel Nordmark.

Hope was crushed for Djurgården’s supporters, but they still had every reason to feel good about the way their team had stood up in one of the most difficult match-ups of the year. That is until defender Peter Gustafsson closed the game with a truly humiliating own-goal to make it 3-1. Djurgården thus succeeded in finding a brand new way to torture their supporters, since simply conceding six goals was apparently beginning to feel passé.

The remaining top five teams, Helsingborg, Kalmar and AIK all won their respective games against what can all be considered bottom-of-the-table teams. Helsingborg beat Gefle who are actually in a presentable 10th place at the moment, but with Gefle’s recent sale of their top player Amadou Jawo to Elfsborg one might expect a continued slide down the table for the most northern team in Allsvenskan.

In the middle of the table, the most noteable event occurred in the game between Häcken and Örebro where the only American still left in Allsvenskan, Carlos Bedoya, scored two goals for Örebro as the team bounced back from a two goal deficit. Bedoya has had some good looks earlier this season, but has really only been given the chance as a dying minute substitute. Whether this means Bedoya will get the chance to play from the start or perhaps turn into a bona-fide a supersub remains to be seen.

The bottom of the table remained largely unchanged as the teams surrounding the relegation zone all failed to record victories.

The past two rounds have as such followed existing trends almost to a tee. But we can expect the forthcoming round to be a lot more interesting as several match-ups are extremely hard to predict. Kalmar will have a chance to prove themselves as a real top contender against Elfsborg at home in a game which I think Kalmar has every chance at winning as long as Rasmus Elm remains on the team. AIK could lose a bit of ground in the top as they will face a real challenge against Malmö away from home. This a match-up that AIK hasn’t won since 1996 and add to that the fact that Malmö suddenly looks a bit more hopeful following their strong 3-0 win away against Halmstad in this round.

All results from the sixteenth round are listed below. Click the yellow links to see the highlights from each game. League standings, statistics and upcoming fixtures can be found by following the links on the right side bar of the blog. Enjoy!

IF Brommapojkarna vs. Kalmar FF 1-2
Trelleborgs FF vs. IFK Göteborg 2-1
Helsingborgs IF vs. Gefle IF 2-0
IF Elfsborg vs. Djurgårdens IF 3-1
Halmstads BK vs. Malmö FF 0-3
Örgryte IS vs. Hammarby IF 0-0
BK Häcken vs. Örebro SK 2-2
AIK vs. GAIS 1-0

US AIK: Buying the Gold

AIK Solna fan Markus Berzen takes a look at his club’s recent signing of Brazilian forward Antonio Flavio. You can read Markus’s excellent AIK blog at http://usaik.blogspot.com/

In all my years as an AIK supporter there have been two particular signings that have left me ecstatic and wondering how in the world AIK managed to sign players of such high class. The first time was when AIK brought home Andreas Andersson from Newcastle United and the second time was the purchase of Derek Boateng from Panathinaikos. Earlier this week AIK made another significant signing in Antonio Flavio Aires dos Santos. While this is unquestionably an exciting acquisition, the level of excitement still fails to reach Andersson or Boateng levels.

Perhaps the reason for this is that I’m less of an optimist and less of a dreamer. Maybe I should be more excited already. After all, Antonio Flavio is a promising young attacker, drawn straight out of the starting eleven of a middle of the table team that plays in the second best league in the world. On paper one could argue that he should be just as hype worthy as Derek Boateng was in 2003.

Well, random interleague rankings and actual league standings be damned, I say. For once I will maintain some level-headed realism when it comes to an exciting new player. And it actually appears that most AIK supporters are with me on this one. Everyone is obviously intrigued and full of anticipation, but it’s still a sort of muted excitement. It’s a wait and see approach with a healthy dose of caution. Something that’s arguably very uncharacteristic for us AIK supporters.

The first comment Björn Wesström made after the transfer had been made official was to say that supporters cannot expect Antonio Flavio to deliver instantly. The young Brazilian hasn’t been signed to specifically fill the shoes of Ivan Obolo, but rather as a promising prospect for the future. According to Wesström this is a player that might require some time in order to grow into his role and to find his way in Swedish soccer.

The case of Derek Boateng might provide a useful lesson. His move to AIK was hyped beyond measure and was seen as AIK’s ticket to European success. Instead we witnessed a young player that certainly needed some time to adapt. His first two years in AIK were considered failures, both for Boateng and the team as a whole. By early 2005, Derek Boateng had hit bottom as a player. Stuck in a recently relegated AIK, Boateng spent the early part of the season on the bench. But somehow Boateng rose out of the ashes in a way that stood as a symbol for the whole 2005 team. By the end of the season he had become a key player on the midfield and a fan favorite. By the time AIK re-entered Allsvenskan in 2006, it only took Boateng a handful of games to achieve profound success. He scored a classic goal against Djurgården and played his way into the Ghanaian World Cup squad that year. Boateng thus moved onwards and upwards in his soccer career, but he had made enough of an impression on AIK supporters to be remembered as a true AIK legend.

Whether Antonio Flavio will experience a similar journey as Derek Boateng is impossible to predict. Just as it is difficult to say if he’ll become an instant success or a disappointing dud. The best bet is not to get our hopes up too high, and simply wish Antonio Flavio the best of luck, show him our support and remain patient with his progress.

Now, it’s a truism to say that Swedes have a bit of a fetish for Brazilian attackers. This has been the case ever since Pelé took the field at Råsunda in the World Cup final over 50 years ago. Many of the Brazilian players that have been signed by Allsvenskan teams have turned out to be raging successes, while a bunch have ended up failing miserably. There simply is no telling what we can expect from a young player like Antonio Flavio as he makes the drastic move from Brazil to Sweden. We know he has speed and technique, but you can never know how his playing style will translate to the more physical and direct Swedish style of soccer. It took Jorge Ortiz one year to find his way, while Ivan Obolo looked right at home in his very first game. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Although it might be considered premature, I would like to praise Björn Wesström for the work he’s performed so far. The team desperately needed another attacker in the squad, particularly since Miran Burgic is on the disabled list. In Antonio Flavio, Wesström has at the very least found an inspiring and exciting prospect. Wesström was furthermore able to bring Antonio Flavio to AIK without directly risking the club’s financial status. This thanks to a combination of an affordable $300k price tag and the financial backing of a third party agent. Björn Wesström has thus performed yet another transfer miracle, just as he did with the return of Dulee Johnson.

Björn Wesström has been known to reject the whole notion behind the adage “selling the gold.” As such, I am sure that he wouldn’t consider it “buying the gold” if Antonio Flavio and Ivan Obolo turn out to be a title-winning combination. But if that best case scenario and deepest dream does come true, I will have no problem arguing that AIK won the gold thanks to Wesström’s purchases. If for no other reason than it would be nice to coin a more positive phrase than the old selling the gold cliché. But as I said about eight times already. We’ll have to wait and see. Que sera, sera, as the song goes.

US AIK: Allsvenskan Round 15 roundup

With fifteen rounds behind us we have now reached the halfway point of the season. In theory anything is still possible, but realistically it appears that the league has been partitioned into three distinct segments. In the first segment we find the five teams that all have a serious shot at the gold; in the middle of the table we have another segment of six teams; and in the bottom of the table we have five teams all struggling to stay out of the relegation zone.

My guess is that these segments will remain fairly intact, but it’s going to be extremely interesting to see what will happen within the top and bottom segments . At this point it’s virtually impossible to predict which team will take home the gold and what teams will end up playing in Superettan in 2010.

The fifteenth round saw four of the top five teams score victories with only AIK failing to take three points. The effect of this was a small slide in the table for AIK down to fifth place, but fortunately only four points separate AIK from IFK Göteborg at the top spot.

League leaders IFK Göteborg bounced back after a couple of weak performances and and the 3-1 victory against Trelleborg was fairly well deserved. Elfsborg and Helsingborg both took important victories away from home, but neither team put on very commanding performances. Elfsborg didn’t look that much better than Djurgården and should consider themselves very fortunate to have won as it took a bit of a fluke goal from Teddy Lucic to decide the game in their favor.

Kalmar continues to impress in Allsvenskan. Their come from behind victory against Brommapojkarna was largely a result of a triple substitution in the 58th minute where two of the substitutes, Daniel Mendes and Ricardo Santos, ended up scoring goals. Kalmar has become a serious contender and should probably be considered the hottest team at the moment. The question is whether the team will remain a viable candidate for the gold if they end up losing their top player, Rasmus Elm. The rising star, who scored a penalty kick against Brommapojkarna, has reportedly visited Premier League side Everton for talks about a possible transfer.

Perhaps the single most fateful match in this round was played at Behrn Arena, where the home team Örebro SK fell hard to BK Häcken by 3-1 following a hat trick by Jonas Henriksson. The result puts BK Häcken securely out of the bottom of the table, but more importantly it means that Örebro falls some five points behind the next team up, which is AIK in fifth place. This probably means that Örebro has fallen out of the top contention and will remain stuck in the middle trudge along with Trelleborg, Häcken, Gefle, Halmstad and Malmö.

The bottom of the table looks just as unpredictable as the top of Allsvenskan. Djurgården actually played a good game against Elfsborg and if they continue to play that way at home there’s still an outside chance that the team can pull off a 14th place finish. Especially since Hammarby proved that they’re just as unstable and toothless as they were in the spring. Hammarby became the first team to lose to one of the worst Allsvenskan sides of all time. To make matters worse, Hammarby fell to patsies Örgryte at home on Söderstadion.

It’s going to be a tough battle between the three Stockholm teams and GAIS at the bottom and right now there’s no telling who will come out of this season with their Allsvenskan contract intact.

Örgryte’s first win has their brand new Norwegian manager Åge Hareide dreaming about a way out of the relegation zone. But despite a two game undefeated streak and better organization under Hareide, I still don’t see how Örgryte will manage to pull off miracles at this point.

All the results of the fifteenth round are listed below. Click the yellow result to see highlights from each of the game. League standings, statistics and upcoming fixtures can be found by following the links on the right side bar of the blog.

Kalmar FF vs. IF Brommapojkarna 3-1
Djurgårdens IF vs. IF Elfsborg 1-2
Gefle IF vs. Helsingborgs IF 0-2
IFK Göteborg vs. Trelleborgs FF 3-1
Hammarby IF vs. Örgryte IS 0-1
Örebro SK vs. BK Häcken 1-3
Malmö FF vs. Halmstads BK 0-0
GAIS vs. AIK 2-2

DC AIK: Allsvenskan Round 14 roundup

IFK Göteborg and IF Elfsborg had a golden opportunity to make some space for themselves at the very top of the league in this fourteenth round. But instead this became a round for the history books as far as AIK supporters are concerned. Göteborg continued their poor form and lost to AIK in one of the most exciting games of the year. Meanwhile, Elfsborg noted their very first defeat of the season as they fell to Helsingborg in a high-scoring game. The result is that we have an extremely close battle for the top spot with at least five teams looking like real contenders at the moment.

IFK Göteborg remains in first place, but are now only one point ahead of Elfsborg and two points ahead of our beloved AIK. Göteborg suddenly looks like a completely different team compared to the unstoppable force we saw back in May. This is undoubtedly an effect of the sale of Pontus Wernbloom and the many crippling injuries on key players.

Göteborg certainly looked like the weaker side in the game against AIK at Råsunda and they failed to score despite being awarded a penalty and despite playing with one man more for most of the second half. Göteborg will have to break this negative trend quickly if they are going to remain a serious title challenger.

As the teams head into double-headers in the upcoming two rounds of Allsvenskan, Göteborg will play Trelleborg at home and away. Any loss of points in these two games will probably knock Göteborg off the top spot as both Elfsborg and AIK are facing far less daunting opponents.

Elfsborg faces a double meeting against Djurgården, and AIK will meet GAIS in two consecutive matches. It’s not far fetched to expect that both Elfsborg and AIK could get away with six points from these games.

From out of nowhere, Kalmar also seem to have entered the top contention. Impressive fall season wins against Malmö FF and most recently against Djurgården bear witness that this is a team that has completely turned the corner after a very poor start of the season. The game against Djurgården was an impressive rout, where Rasmus Elm showed some particularly outstanding class. He ruled the midfield and managed to score two goals of his own, including a trademark R(iqu)Elm(e) free-kick. For a large part of the game, Djurgården actually looked better than usual and managed to stay in the game for about 50 minutes. But Kalmar showed their class as they scored two goals in quick concession in the 53rd and 56th minute. After that, Djurgården literally collapsed and turned into the utterly dreadful team we’re used to. This was Djurgården’s second game this season where they’ve allowed 6 goals.

Örebro’s rather surprising and impressive victory against Trelleborg means Örebro still has a chance to enter the top four. Örebro are now in sixth place and should be considered the last team with an outside chance at grabbing a top position.

Dissapointing Malmö FF continue to embarrass themselves after failing to beat Brommapojkarna and at this point Malmö should be content if they manage to stay out of the relegation play-off spot.

Hammarby lost a sleepy game away against BK Häcken at Nya Ullevi in Gothenburg. BK Häcken scored both their goals on stoppage time through Friberg and Paulinho. Häcken invited a few thousand youth players who are taking part of the Häcken’s annual youth tournament, Gothia Cup. The resulting attendance of 10,465 is about six thousand percent larger than BK Häcken is used to, but it really did nothing to raise the temperature of this insanely dull game.

Hammarby looks a little bit more stable compared to this spring, particularly thanks to newly added midfielder Andreas Dahl. Despite the loss, it looks like Hammarby has taken the necessary steps to build a squad strong enough to keep the team out of relegation zone even without Charlie Davies. But Hammarby will probably still need their two Brazilians to deliver once they are made available for play, because Hammarby’s attack looks lackluster at best.

The relegation zone struggle still remains fairly fluent with only a few points setting the bottom teams apart. Örgryte are of course already doomed to relegation, but it’s more difficult to predict which team will end up in the second relegation spot. Djurgården, GAIS and Brommapojkarna all have tricky double meetings coming up and I would put my money on these three teams to duke it out over places 13-15.

Below you’ll find all the results from the 14th round of Allsvenskan. Click the yellow result to see the highlights of each game. Information such as league standings, statistics and upcoming fixtures can be found in the Allsvenskan links on the right side bar of the blog.

Kalmar FF vs. Djurgårdens IF 6-1
Helsingborgs IF vs. IF Elfsborg 3-2
GAIS vs. Halmstads BK 1-1
IF Brommapojkarna vs. Malmö FF 1-1
Örgryte IS vs. Gefle IF 2-2
Trelleborgs FF vs. Örebro SK 0-1
AIK vs. IFK Göteborg 1-0
BK Häcken vs. Hammarby IF 2-0

Allsvenskan autumn preview

In a brief moment of clarity I once wrote that I will avoid making predictions because doing so will eventually offer proof that I have no idea of what I’m talking about. While I was smart enough to figure that much out on my own, I am unfortunately dumb enough to ignore my own advice.

The following entry will present my predictions for the fall season in Allsvenskan. The teams are listed in the order of their current league position with their predicted finish noted below the name of each team. Hopefully this will provide you with an idea of where the different teams stand. Please note that any correspondence with actual standings at the end of the season will be coincidental and purely a result of dumb luck.

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AIK View: Selling the Gold

With no action taking place on the pitch in June, activity is instead found in the transfer market. It’s a mid-year silly season that is particularly sweaty for us AIK supporters. The biggest target for rumors and speculation just happens to be AIK’s most valuable player and the hero of the spring season, Ivan Obolo.
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Kom Igen Gnaget!

I mentioned the hoolietwattery in my previous post, so it’s only fair that the amazing tifo AIK fans put on for the derby against Djurgården last night gets a mention too. This is unbelievable stuff.

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Obolo takes spoils for AIK

Ivan Obolo scored the winner in tonight’s Stockholm derby at Råsunda, where AIK beat Djurgården 1-0. “A really fine goal,” Obolo told Canal Plus. Modest, isn’t he?

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Allsvenskan roundup: Has Hysén scored goal of the year already?

IFK Göteborg won 2-1 against FF kalmar, thanks to a suberb goal from Tobias Hysen which was immediately hailed by some commentators as the goal of the season. It’s some finish, but not quite that good, as Kalmar goalkeeper Petter Wastå will want to look at his positioning, but well-taken all the same from IFK’s midfielder.

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Allsvenskan round-up

We’ve ignored Allsvenskan a little bit recently, due to unavoidable other commitments*, but there are a couple of stories I’d like to bring to your attention. First up, Swedish hooligans. This has been a theme in coverage of Swedish football, as the problem has grown in recent years. It’s certainly something the Stockholm clubs will have to deal with, as they have had more dificulties than other clubs, as the Swedish FA’s cack-handed attempts at making away clubs pay for the security of their fans – without sharing any ticket revenue with them – were always doomed to failure.

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