Well, it promises to be an interesting away match for most Southern-European teams, who could be not so used to playing next to the Polar Circle.
A couple of preseason 2019 friendlies away for champs Piteå: We'll see if the narrow losses are significant when 'competitive' football starts next week in Sweden. The Swedish and Scottish title races were both very close in 2018. (Hibernian-Piteå match report / Archived) ... Piteå also beat strugglers Spartans in a bizarre 3 x 20-minute training game, also not known as a "T20". The first competition is the Swedish Cup (Svenska Cupen) group games from 9 Feb - 10 March. The Damallsvenskan begins on 14 April 2019.
So, 2019 begins, and the Cup started with a hat-trick for Kosovare Asllani - her club Linköping beat Jitex BK 4-1, while Rosengård beat LB07 (video). The same weekend, Piteå also had a hat-trick in a 5-1 win thanks to Madelen Janogy. After that, level-3 club Jitex lost again, 13-0 to Gothenburg. Asllani - 4 goals in 2 games for Linköping(Pierre-Yves Beaudouin / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0) The Swedish leagues are the destination for a number of players who were in North American leagues. They include Julia Ashley (#6 NWSL draft pick, turning down Sky Blue FC), Sherifatu Sumaila (Ghana), and Christabel Oduro (Canada) Article by Tim Grainey - https://www.tribalfootball.com/arti...ns-west-asian-championships-4268118#popup-sso (Archived)
New season started last weekend. Some thoughts Just like last year the title race seems very open. Noone thought Piteå would win last year and very few people think they will win this year eventhough they have almost the exact same squad, perhaps even a little bit stronger. Very poor pre-season but started league with a classic Piteå 1-0 win. Linköping, champions 2016 and 2017, are back as favourites after signing Sweden Internationals Stina Blackstenius and Mimmi Larsson to boost the attack. Also Nilla Fischer joining them this summer. Other internationals like Asllani, Hurtig, Oskarsson and Maanum are key players for them. Göteborg, runners up last season, are also among the favourites. Almost same squad as last year, lost Schough but got Norwegian Boe Risa and Finnish Kuikka instead. Rubensson the star of the team and they also have the best goalkeeper pair (Geurts, Falk). Rosengård always among the favourites. Veterans Mittag and Seger still hanging in there and some interesting up and coming Swedes like defender Björn and 16 year old super talent Bennison in midfield. Jessica Samuelsson and Hailie Mace should be good signings. Kristianstad is mentioned as an outsider, 4th last year but stronger squad now after signing Icelandic striker Gudmundsdottir and LB07 star midfielder Welin. Icelandic coach and a couple of more dottirs on the team so this is a physical monster to meet. Eskilstuna with Canadian Woeller, a couple of Nigerian internationals, midfield veterans Dahlkvist and Johansson and the promising attacker Kullashi should be a mid table team just like Djurgården, also with plenty of internationals including Schough, Folkesson and 3 Icelandic ones. Växjö managed to keep their stars Anvegård and Cankovic. Cankovic wanted to leave but they forced her to stay, remains to be seen if that was smart or not. Didn't start well for sure with a big defeat. Vittsjö lacks star quality and probably also in the bottom half somewhere. 1 year in Elitettan was enough for Örebro and they are back again. They have talented young Swedish defenders at the back and 4 speedy North Americans in attack and should be fun to watch. LB07 and Kungsbacka don't look good enough for Damallsvenskan and are favourites to go down. Newbies Kungsbacka have to play in another city as their stadium isn't of Damallsvenskan quality either. Results round 1: Linköpings FC 5 (Larsson 2, Hurtig, Asllani, Maanum) Växjö DFF 0 Attendance: 545 https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=648862838905875 KIF Örebro DFF 1 (Williams) Vittsjö GIK 0 Attendance: 388 https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=494190111115182 Piteå IF DFF 1 (Jakobsson) Djurgårdens IF FF 0 Attendance: 1 822 https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=347387256132764 Kristianstads DFF 5 (Gudmundsdottir, Edgren, Welin, Sigfusdottir, Ivarsson) IF Limhamn Bunkeflo 1 (Lang-Nilsson) Attendance: 625 https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=844137615920693 Eskilstuna United DFF 0 FC Rosengård 1 (Björn) Attendance: 1 223 https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1231122413702744 Kungsbacka DFF 0 Kopparbergs/Göteborg FC 3 (Curmark, Risa, Hammarlund) Attendance: 547
Hey @flax, thanks very much for posting those videos! ☀ Club friendlies 2019 has the Swedish preseason results, including Örebro's surprising and/or meaningless win at Gothenburg Cup final is next week.
The best women's football blog in the world right now might be this one from Sweden - "Hattrick". It's in Swedish - https://damfotbollblog.wordpress.com/ Autotranslated to English: - www.womensfotbollblog.wordpress.com/ With revelatory information about the 2nd division, Elitettan... Umeå are in the 2nd division? What?! When did this happen?>? (Oh yeah, 2016) - damfotbollblog.wordpress.com/2019/04/22/resultat-och-statistik-elitettan-2-26 (Autotranslated / Archived) And, whose Damallsvenskan team is the yngsta (youngest) and äldsta (oldest)?
Sweden do have a fairly even league and no team can stay at the top forever (with the possible exception from Malmö* (under whatever name they are currently operating) ). Umeå wasn't even close to promotion back in either 2017 or 2018. *They same is true on our men's side. Only difference is that Malmö stays as Malmö FF there and do not change names.
Matchday 2 3 teams with 6 points after round 2. FC Rosengård played their best football for quite some time and looks to be the team to beat. Linköping also with 2 out of 2. Newcomers Örebro are no Championship candidates but have had a good start with 2 straight wins against expected bottom dwellers. Early days but it's already looking bad for relegation candidates Limhamn and Kungsbacka. Djurgården also with 0 points but they have at least played good football. Results and goals, some of these defences need to shape up! : Kopparbergs/Göteborg FC 1 (Leach) Eskilstuna United 1 (Kullashi) Attendance: 823 https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=399799237416264 FC Rosengård 5 (Landeka, Troelsgaard, Utland, Mace, Wieder) Kristianstads DFF 1 (own goal) Attendance: 1 089 https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=424604428103014 Växjö DFF 0 Piteå IF 0 Attendance: 502 Vittsjö GIK 3 (de Jongh 2, Markstedt) Kungsbacka DFF 0 Attendance: 649 https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=2340708372920150 IF Limhamn Bunkeflo 1 (Sundqvist) KIF Örebro 3 (Williams, Steiner, Vidlund) Attendance: 219 https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=266241517516495 Djurgårdens IF 2 (Schough, Jalkerud) Linköpings FC 3 (Hurtig, Larsson, Blackstenius) Attendance: 1 140 https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=407332076732529
Whatever happened to Utland's goal in the summary? Did she score while the camera men were replacing a new roll of film?
Sorry, I will tell them to stop discriminating against Norwegians! Here are some more non goals from the goalless draw. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=2573773365984214
Matchday 3 under way KIF Örebro 0 FC Rosengård 4 (Utland 3, Mace) Attendance: 1301 As expected Rosengård had no problem beating KIF Örebro. To make up for the goal that was missing from Utland in the highlights last time we now give @Bauser 3 Utland goals! Much better season so far from Utland with 4 goals already (she only scored 6 last year). https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=667734686990130 Kungsbacka DFF 1 (Pettersson) Djurgårdens IF 2 (Schough 2) Attendance: 135 Kungsbacka loosing again and already noone cares. But should be pointed out that they have to play all their home matches in a another city as their stadium isn't of Damallsvenskan quality. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1814747028624819 Piteå v LB07 postponed.
Kopparbergs/Göteborg FC are Swedish Cup winners after beating Kristianstads DFF 2-1 in the final after a questionable injury time penalty. The two teams also met in the league only days before the cup final in another very even fight: Kristianstad 2 (Ivarsson, Gudmundsdottir) Göteborg 2 (Koivisto, Zigiott) Attendance: 712 https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=2133390866753038 More round 3 highlights: Vittsjö 2 (de Jongh, Bott) Linköping 0 Attendance: 497 It was wet, it was heavy and it was fun (for Vittsjö). Star studded Linköping with 4 Sweden internationals had bleak performance. Well deserved win for Vittsjö who battled a lot better. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=298712541049729 Eskilstuna 0 Växjö 1 (Alanen) Attendance: 1198 Eskilstuna are good...at shooting wide https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=855131704823618 And now we skip to round 4! One match played so far: Växjö 1 (Anvegård) Vittsjö 1 (de Jongh) Attendance: 401 Vittsjö with a great start to the season. They secured the their Damallsvenskan existence in the last round last year, now they are 2nd. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=462228094515726 Table
Rest of round 4 results and highlights: Rosengård 2 (Utland, Bennison) Göteborg 2 (Zigiotti , Blomqvist) Attendance: 1312 Very enteraining top match. Rosengård dominating early on but Göteborg with a good comeback. Göteborg Dutch goalie Geurts not showing World cup form but still they nearly grabbed all 3 points. Musovic on the other end also gave away a goal but made up for it by saving a penalty that looked very cheap in the first place. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=413001239499454 Djurgården 0 Kristianstad 2 (Ivarsson x2) Attendance: 576 Centre back Ivarsson with her 3rd and 4th goal already, great box player. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=436529540257020 Kungsbacka 1 (Asperot) Piteå 5 (Jakobsson, Aronsson, Karlernäs, Janogy x2) Attendance: 152 Easy win for reigning champions Piteå, but Kungsbacka are not very good to be honest. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=388966625040045 LB07 0 Eskilstuna 1 (Collin) Attendance: 103 First win for Eskilstuna, LB07 still with 0 points and with that kind of crowds not a lot of people are going to miss them if they go down. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=2424925057754015 Linköping 4 (Blackstenius, Hurtig x2, Lennartsson) Örebro 1 (Regnås) Attendance: 453 Oooops-moment for goalie Rice on the first goal. Nice penalty save from her later on though. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=475939839847107
After she led the scoring in Malawi in 2017, Temwa is leading now in the Swedish second division, Elittetan "2019 & the 'kid sister' Temwa Chawinga is leading the golden boot race in the Elitettan (second-tier Swedish league): 10 goals in 6 matches for Kvarnsveden, same club big sister Tabitha Chawinga announced her name to the world. As ever-in-form as the #ChawingaSisters #Afrique" - (JWsports1, Twitter) She's now on 11 goals. The leading clubs for promotion are Hammarby and Umeå on 19pts each, after 7 games.
Round 5, 6 and 7 were also played before the loooong World Cup break. Doesn't get much closer than this at the top with 7 teams very much still in the title race. Göteborg the only undefeated team but still only 1 point ahead of 4 other teams. Looked like Kungsbacka and Limhamn were destined to go down but Limhamn had a shock win against Rosengård so now there are 3 other teams close to relegation. Transfer news: Emma Berglund moving from PSG to Göteborg. Never really got back into the PSG line-up after her ACL. Rosengård´s Anja Mittag is retiring after a fantastic career where she has won pretty much everything you can win. Noone running away with the Golden boot either, close in the goal scoring list: Lots of Swedish internationals but only one 1 foreign player (Utland) in that list. Only 3 years ago the goal scoring list looked like this with plenty of big stars:
Hmm, I bookmarked this as "Sweden weird statue things". Enjoy! "Kosovare Asllani, Nilla Fischer, Hedvig Lindahl and Caroline Seger will be be honoured with 1:1 scale images, which will be visible in different locations across Sweden during the summer." - www.shekicks.net/four-swedish-stars-feature-in-equality-initiative-footballforevher/ (Archived) And here they are in action, outside of BLÅVITTshopen - www.youtu.be/vrUgpwjgKic Swedish support is far and wide - seen on SBS's World Cup Fans Sweden's World Cup shirts will feature female role models and girls in Australia are inspired - https://www.sbs.com.au/news/sweden-...le-models-and-girls-in-australia-are-inspired (Archived)
Sweden's World Cup highlight... they did it Germany v Sweden (quarter-final) - FIFA Women’s World Cup France 2019™ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldXjbs3BJ90
AND we're back, the 2019 Damallsvenskan got underway last Saturday (20 July). For the new fans, Sophie Lawson did an introduction to the Swedish league: "Everything you ever wanted to know about Damallsvenskan but were too afraid to ask" (Why is everyone on the internet so afraid?) - www.allforxi.com/2019/7/22/20702030/everything-ever-wanted-to-know-about-damallsvenskan-too-afraid-to-ask
Hanna Bennison. This will be Sweden's next big export player. Attacking midfielder, key player at Rosengård and still only 16. I'm very impressed by her. I know it's a cliche to say a player "has it all", but Bennison comes close.
Will Rosengård make a run for it? One more game and we're half way through the season. Extremely tight title race at the moment as teams have been stealing points from each other left and right lately. I guess this is the strength of this league now that it can't attract the really big names anymore. No top European teams but still lots of good teams and many close games. Rosengård can get a small gap if they beat Djurgården in the last match of round 11. They look like the most complete team at the moment too. Göteborg has run into some poor form and dropped down from 1st to 4th after the WC. They look a little lost without their ill star Rubensson. Linköping (champions 2016, 2017) and reigning champions Piteå are very much back in the race. Never count these guys out! And wow I think I'm in love with Vittsjö . Such energy and fighting spirit on this team! And the whole little village (less than 2000 inhabitants) is behind them. Newcomers Örebro also doing extremely well with their mix of solid Swedish defensive players, speedy match winning North Americans and a touch of Finnish sisu. Kristianstad also tagging along in the shadows. Less exciting at the bottom where Limhamn and Kungsbacka look certain go down.
Rosengård got the win on Monday night, 3-0 (goals: Anam Imo 44', Lisa-Marie Utland 68', 69'), report on Goal.com. The Damallsvenskan seems to have embraced the mania for shareable content, and has given up on using words. - https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=631952950546663
Week 12, Saturday -- Linköping and Kristianstad draw 0-0 (Nilla Fischer injured), which sends Vittsjö up into 2nd place with their 4-0 win over Limhamn. Rosengård have stayed on top by beating Eskilstuna (9th), just a 2-1 win, with both goals by Anam Imo from Nigeria. Piteå and Gothenburg will look to the Champions League draw on Friday, both unseeded in round 1.