Allsvenskan Round 15 Review

July 5th, 2011 | by: aron | Comments Off

That’s fifteen rounds down and fifteen more to go! The Allsvenskan has reached its midway point and now is getting ready to enter the home stretch. Everything that we thought we knew fifteen rounds ago has been dragged through the mud, shot in the head, and then finally erased from existence. Giants have ruled the land only to be slain in what is one of Europe’s most even leagues.

To cover this round I start at the very beginning, which as Julie Andrews once said, “is a very good place to start.” Kick off was at 1600 hours in Kalmar´s castle (not the old one where you held prisoners, but in the new one where they never lose) Guldfågeln Arena. The visitors were Trelleborg who had this decent period (of managing not to lose) a few rounds back, which they have now traded for skid row on the lower end of the table. In any case it was going to be a hard game, or so it seemed until the second minute when Kalmar started scoring. At halftime they were up 2-0 and in the first minute of the second half they made it 3-0. So they were cruising right? Yep until their keeper got red carded and they had to put in a defender between the posts. Five nervous minutes later the score was 3-2 and once the referee blew the whistle the home fans could breathe again. What a way to end a game! Drama to the last second! My feeling for the team going against a red-carded keeper with an amateur in goal is just to shoot as often as possible. Trelleborg did but they couldn’t get enough in!

IFK Göteborg were without Tobias Hysen when they went up to Södertälje to play Syrianska. That prompted me to ponder whether or not this was going to affect their game plan or not. IFK went with Robin Söder and Hannes Stiller from start: a fresh young prospect and the late bloomer. The late bloomer scored in the first half to put Göteborg ahead. In the second Sharbel Touma managed to equalize, which must have driven the fans into a wild frenzy. Too bad that 15 minutes later Stiller ended the game with his 2-1. Syrianska is going to play in Superettan next year. Its not even worth betting on at this point!

Gefle away against GAIS, now who do you favor in a game like that. Note that GAIS was without their hot prospect Mervan Celik who injured himself last week. I personally would have thought that if anybody was going to rain on Gefle’s parade, that it would be a yo-yo team like GAIS. I was wrong as usual. After twenty minutes Mikael Dahlberg (the man who couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn last year) had scored two goals and teammate Jakob Orlov one. GAIS didn’t give up though and at full time the score was 3-2. Gefle to finish in the top five this year? It isn’t as far fetched as it would have seemed at the beginning of the season.

Rikard Norling has it hard in Malmö. He’s got a team that should be winning at least 80% of the time. He’s got a bench and a talent factory that make the club seem like the Barcelona of Sweden. On the other hand he has a bunch of winners from last year who seem to have lost their fire. Norrköping came to town on Sunday and to be fair I think its time that he starts showing the fans he can win. Note that Norrköping started the season brilliantly only to start sliding recently with injuries, bad bounces, and a general lack of team spirit. To add to all this, Ivo Pekalski made his comeback. Malmö was up 1-0 at half time and one minute into the second they had 2-0. Norrköping fought back for the remainder and managed to score a goal, but one goal just wasn’t going to be enough. I am still waiting for Dardan Rexhepi to really arrive as the next big thing and to be frank; this far I am not all that impressed.

Örebro took on Elfsborg at home and to be honest I thought this was going to be the game of the weekend. Well it was in some ways. John Alvbåge got a red card for one thing and then decided that if he couldn´t help the team on the field, he could damn well help them in the stands by leading the crowd in song. That kind of thing is always nice to see, but if you lose 3-0 because your keeper got a stupid red card then it just isn’t as touching that the player took on the role of prominent cheerleader. Ishizaki, Jawo, and Larsson did the scoring for Elfsborg. What has become of the once legendary David Elm? Will he break back into the starting line-up these days or was he a two-season wonder at Kalmar? Time will tell.

AIK had an away game at Halmstad. AIK has problems with away games, but then again Halmstad is the worst team in the Allsvenskan after fourteen rounds. Easy says I and what do you know, AIK won again away and this time 3-1 at that. The Banguras did all the scoring and without them I don’t think AIK really has any other options. Pep Ruiz has as of this writing been fired as the Halmstad trainer and his departure marks the end of the short-lived Spanish age in Swedish football. Maybe some other team will give him a chance and this time not a dying club like Halmstad. I would like to see him at the helm somewhere else for sure but I cannot imagine it happening this year.

Häcken, the middle table team of the year, hosted Mjällby and showed them how a home team should play. That is to say they outplayed them so bad that in the end it looked like a tennis set from the opening rounds of Wimbledon. 6-0 was the final score and Matthias Ranegie scored of course. The question doesn’t seem to be whether or not he is leaving, but where he is going to be going. When he wants to he is one of the best strikers Sweden has at the moment. If he can keep up this tempo in a better league, the national team is going to have a second look at him.

In the Monday evening game Djurgården, the strongest team of the last couple rounds, hosted league leaders Helsingborg in what was promoted as a clash of titans. It ended 1-1 and to be fair while Djurgården seem to have fixed what ailed them earlier this season, if the game had gone on much longer Helsingborg would have put another goal away.  Alexander Gerndt scored again and Helsingborg confirmed yesterday that a team has placed a bid on the Sweden international. Gerndt is likely to be leaving then, the question is just when and to who. FC Copenhagen seems like the most likely team at the moment, but in the silly season anything can happen.

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The Swedish National Team took their second win in as many games when they beat North Korea. Personally I was happily surprised that we have been as good as we have so far. I don’t expect this to continue though and after we lose to the United States tomorrow, I expect us to get our return tickets to Sweden in the quarterfinal against Brazil.

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To the transfers then! Guillermo Molins had things going his way: a fantastic season last year with Malmö and then with a decent first half of the year, he gets sold to Anderlecht and eight days later in a friendly he injures his knee badly. Poor guy is gonna be out for six months. Get well Guillermo!

Mikael Antonsson has left FC Copenhagen on a Bosman and is now the next Swede to make his presence known in Serie A. Antonsson is no young spring chicken so it will be interesting to see how long he lasts for Bologna FC. Still I think it was a good club choice and when an offer like that shows up you don’t turn it down.