Happily tv4sport did indeed broadcast LdB Malmö vs Tyresö – never mind that the official federation website didn't bother to say so – bastages – anyway, having not seen any top-flight football for nearly a month now, it was nice to be reminded that that Marta chick is pretty good.
Boquete. We're all about Véro now. We know what Marta can do. And we're also about Big Birdling Things that wind up on the pitch somehow. (thanks to @ProtagonistasDJ on Twitter for this photo)
The game may not have been as crazy as the one last year between the two teams, but it still had it's fair share of drama. The iffy pk call with Marta and Soberg psych out on Mittag. Then of course the goal/not a goal controversy, credit to Soberg for trapping the ball against post and making it a hard call. Was there really a player scuffle while the tv feed just showed replays of the goal/not goal. On twitter they were saying about 4/5 players got into to it, but nothing in the papers I read mentioned it. Imagine how crazy it could have gotten if not for Palmqvist. Do you think TFF will be able to keep the team together for next year Champions League? I hate when strong teams qualify then lose a bunch of players and wind up being a weak paper champ when league games begin. This fan video needs to be shared for the Vero and Elaine dancing at 14:00 alone.
For the first part of it yes for the last part who knows. TFF have a lot of their stars singed for 2 years so they should stay for the next year but when the Swedish seasson ends 2013 it is before the quearterfinals in the UEFA WCL 2013-2014 that TFF is now qualified for. (And any qualified Swedish team would be unlucky to not reach quartefinals it is there it starts to become seriously difficult)
In fairness, LdB started it, with a big fuzzy elephant in an LdB shirt working the line-ups. An interview with Marta (in Swedish), in which she expresses her great joy at winning her 5th (!) league title. Those four times she did it with Umeå were also nice, sure, but this one was special because it was so back and forth, and so last-minute. (The picture that goes along with the article is sure to appeal to Brazil fans.) She could have given her old team a bit of a shout-out — after all, Umeå's tie against LdB in the next-to-last round helped Tyresö a great deal.
I didn't see that there was a player scuffle as much as just players bumping into each other while attempting to mob Palmqvist and the line judge while they were talking things over; it also looked like it was Seger who finally managed to shag everyone away from the officials. A Seger-detractor could reasonably suggest that she may have just come in at the end, after cards had been threatened. I really really hope so. As far as WCL, I am so tired of Swedish teams in the March quarterfinals looking so gawdawful. That's more to do with weather of course but it doesn't help that, by then, that team is two full seasons away from the team that got them there in the first place.
So that was that. Interestingly enough, a review of club funding mentioned by Dandal's roundup on Damallsvenskan shows that relegation results weren't overly surprising this year: the two teams with least sponsorship and the lowest numbers of full-time professionals were relegated. The tops teams had 16 full-timers, the average for the league was 6, Djurgården had 3. So the "bargain basement" wheelings-and-dealings begin. Varli, anyone? I'd sign her myself just to watch her dribble* around the living room. * As in "ball control" rather than drooling.
And how was it? (The wine, I mean.) Bitter? Regrettable? (Wine or season or game itself, take your pick.) Sigh. Nothing new under the sun; them as has, gets. De som har, får? To cheer us up, there's this video to which Dandal put up a link, in which Hedvig Lindahl has some lines. It's called 'Crowdfunding för damfotbollen' but I read it first as 'Confounding för damfotbollen.' Hmm, between this and the Oinks, it might be time for an eye check up... edit: funds raised are intended to increase media coverage and support damfotboll.com
A cute wrap-up of the season video from Kristianstad's perspective, in which the win against Tyresö is highlighted and they also play in water and hang out on a beach. They look so happy, dang it, which makes me feel grumpy for being grumpy. Why am I grumpy? Because this might be real, potentially, maybe. It's a win-win for grumpiness. Either it's a fake and it's not funny, or it's real and I will never see it. And even if I did see it, it would make me grumpy! It's a triple! And just like that I'm happy again. (it's only me doing more Bälinge-whinging.)
Meanwhile way up there's newspaper, Norrbottens Kuriren, has given awarded Piteå's American Jennifer Nobis its player of the year honor, Kuirerenbollen, which I have to say looks a lot more like the Diamond Ball award ought to look than it does. She's interviewed here, in English. Sounds like she'd like to keep playing for a while.