[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APbz248JHZ8"]Trelleborgs FF - Ängelholms FF 2012 Highlights - YouTube[/ame] Ängelholm started off their Superettan season today with a good 1-1 result away against Trelleborg. However, having watched the game I must say that Pyzdrowski looked quite rusty and struggled on several occasions to control the wet ball in the rain. His action on the first goal was also shaky and the commentators pointed out several times that his performance today was very different to how stable he looked during last season. Fellow american Lester Dewee got around 10 minutes of playing time at the end of the game but didn't have much impact.
Pyzdrowski kept his first clean sheet of the season as Ängelholm won 1-0 yesterday. No TV broadcast for this game so I can't comment personally but SvenskaFans gave him a 4/5 rating with the following text: "He was named "Man of the Match" after his amazing performance in the second half. The panther-like save on Dannermans header is technical perfection and the save with his leg on Claessons close range effort with ten minutes remaining was as beautiful as it was effective. Even with these game-deciding actions Matthew also shows that his feet isn't of the highest quality. With better concentration he should stop being so sloppy with his kicks ending up out of bounds to the left or right. Summary: Great to see our starting keeper perform well again after the mistakes against Trelleborg last week." Seems like I'm always watching Pyzdrowski in the wrong matches, he always seem to have his best performances when the tv-cameras aren't there. No playing time for Lester Dewee in this game.
Ängelholm seem to have started picking up some steam now after their slow start and has moved up into sixth place. After five games played Pyzdrowski currently has the second best save percentage in the swedish second tier. Here's what SvenskaFans has thought of his performances in the three latest game: Game 3, rating: 4/5 Yes - Matt shows his class again! Have looked shaky in the first two games, but in this game he was back to looking his usual 100%. Makes two or three amazing saves and doesn't make any errors with his poor footballing feet (like in the previous game). Was hugely dissapointed after the game and refused to talk. A winner, in other words. Game 4, rating: 2/5 Close to making a huge mistake when he picked up the ball only millimetres from being outside of the penalty area. Makes a mistake when the opponents score after he fails to position himself properly in goal after his poor clearence with a header. Doesn't get the chance to redeem himself after that as the opponents create very little. Also displayed a lack of ability with his feet. Game 5, rating: 3/5 Still weak with his feet but provides a couple of game winnig saves. No chance on the goals.
Here's a Google Translate of a long interview with Pyzdrowski by SvenskaFans. And here's also their ratings for his recent performances: Game 6, rating: 3/5 Hesitant in the first half. Struggles to box the ball away and gave away a corner when he slipped. Improves in the second haft and has a superb double save. In the end a game winner. Game 7, rating: 4/5 Scatters balls both to the left and right with his feet. He does the same with his hands, but instead in a positive way. Yet again a match deciding impact. Game 8, rating: 3/5 Mixed performance. Can be blamed for the last two goals. But at the same time makes a huge save on a close header in the 51st minute. Game 9, rating: - No ratings for this game. Game 10, rating: 3/5 Makes a huge mistake on the goal. Still gets a good grade - especially considering his first half free kick save. Pyzdrowskis games so far this year has a clear pattern - one or two huge saves are weighed down by one or two sudden mistakes, and his ability to use his feet needs to be carefully examined. Game 11, rating: - No ratings for this game.
SvenskaFans have been posting summaries on how Ängelholm players have been performing during the first half of the season. Here's what they wrote about Pyzdrowski: The guy writing the Ängelholm articles seems to be really into this panther thing.
Terrible news. Pyzdrowski suffered his third concussion of the year in today's match and now will be out indefinitely.
Pyzdrowski will be out for the rest of the year, but return again next season. Here's what he wrote on Twitter: Ängelholm seem to be struggling quite a bit without Pyzdrowski in their team: three losses and one draw in the last four games.
Pyzdrowskis contract with Ängelholm ends after this season and in the local paper the club reveals that they are currently pondering whether or not to offer him an extension or stick with the young keeper they have playing now instead of him. They say that they are awaiting some more information from the doctor about his concussions before they make their final decision.
Matt Pyzdrowski is back from his injury and played his first competitive game in a long time yesterday when Ängelholm managed to get a 1-1 draw against Allsvenskan club Mjällby. A good result no doubt and according to reports "the old Pyzdrowski was back", which would mean that he played well.
The two biggest swedish newspapers released their traditional season preview magazines this weekend. And like recent years I thought I would again provide some scans of the player ratings which are the most talked about parts of these magazines. The Superettan sections of these magazines are much smaller and only have the ratings without comments. Only one of the magazines had ratings for Superettan players last year and Pyzdrowski was given 4/5 back then. So with both magazines rating him 3/5 it seems like Pyzdrowskis rep took a minor hit last season after an average start followed by alot of bad luck with injuries.
I watched Pyzdrowski earlier today as Ängelholm lost 0-2 in their 2013 Superettan home opener against IK Brage. He looked solid throughout the game with the most memorable save coming towards the end of the first half on a shot from the edge of the penalty area that was going in just below the crossbar. He couldn't do much on the first goal but maybe the second could have been prevented by being positioned a little better. Ängelholm hit the crossbar twice in this game and had enough chances to get a draw but Brage was just more effective in the end. Both the americans in IK Brage (Brian Meredith and Tyler Ruthven) spent the entire game on the bench, so nothing to report on them.
Pyzdrowski kept his first clean sheet of the season today when Ängelholm drew 0-0 against Landskrona BoIS. The game was televised but I only had it on in the background while doing other stuff. From the parts I did see though I can say that Pyzdrowski had a good performance combined with some luck. The highlights video above mostly shows the times he's lucky (besides the nice save at about 1:05 into the clip). Overall it was a really unlikely 0-0 result considering all the chances, and especially Landskrona probably should have score a few goals.
I watched Ängelholm fight bravely to bring home one point earlier tonight in a difficult away game against top team GIF Sundsvall. Both of the Ängelholm americans played their part in the result too. Their team parked the bus for most of the game so I can't give to many details about Warshaws performance beyond that he did his part defensively. He also caught an elbow to his nose which started bleeding so much that he had to change his shirt but apparantly they didn't bring any backups so he had to change his number halfway through the game! But more importantly Warshaw also scored the 2-1 goal for Ängelholm in one of their rare attacks. Then towards the end of the game the other american Matt Pyzdrowski did his part by making several crucial saves as Sundsvall chased the win. He was also a bit lucky with a shot hitting the post, but a good performance from Pyzdrowski overall.
The blog covering Superettan for the biggest newspaper in Sweden listed Pyzdrowski as one of the four best keepers in the league today. The blog describes him as secure and stable with the occasional game winning performance, and I would agree with that description although I would maybe put one or two more keepers in the mix to possible be ranked higher then Pyzdrowski this season. Bit still, he's has done well every time I've seen him.
I try my best I also noticed that Pyzdrowski has uploaded a video with some of his saves, most of them are from the previous season: On Ängelholm in general I think their preseason has seemed a bit shaky from what I've read, so maybe there's reason for them to nervously look downwards in the table this year. Though I think there's a bit too much quality to be worried about the bottom two places of the table I could see them having to at least worry about avoiding the relegation playoffs. But then again Ängelholm always seems to perform better then I expect them to in the end so they might just as well end up being fine.
The competitive season of 2014 has started now in Sweden as the Swedish Cup group stage has kicked off in the past few days. I watched two matches so far, one of which was Ängelholms away game against Hammarby where Pyzdrowski had a really great man of the match performance. The highlights video above shows some of his saves, and to summarize what I saw he really kept Ängelholm in the game during the first half as Hammarby totally dominated play. Then at the start of the second half Hammarby got a player sent of which calmed things down a bit until the end of the game where Hammarby once again pressured for a winning goal but Pyzdrowski would not be beaten and the game ended 0-0. Pyzdrowski himself was happy with his own performance and in an interview after the game he said: "I don't even know what kind of level I was playing at. It was my best game of all time. I had the feeling that things were going to work out and that's a special feeling. It's incredibly nice to have that feeling and important to be able to feel calm. I think all keeper would agree with me on that. For me personally it was a magical game. It was a special night and the feelings just flew. Towards the end I could only laugh. Everything went my way and it was definitely the best game of my life. And it's to be able to do it away against Hammarby is also big of course. I don't think I've ever played better. Of course I've had good games before, but today I played a game that was beyond my limits. I'm on the last year of my contract with Ängelholm now and we will see what happens. If I keep playing like this there are no limits to what can happen. Of course I want to play at as high of a level as possible." It will definitely be interesting to see Pyzdrowski for the rest of this season. I feel that he during previous seasons has been close to, but not quite at, the type of performances that brings about getting signed by a team at a higher level. But with a start like yesterdays game maybe he can take that step in 2014?
I haven't been posting any updates on Pyzdrowski this season but from what I've seen he's pretty much the big hope for Ängelholm when it comes to avoiding relegation. Their defense is shaky and some of their attacking players have not been available or underperforming while Pyzdrowski has had to keep pulling off miracle save after miracle save. The club is currently one place above relegation with one more game played, but with a more average Superettan-keeper they would probably be in last place by now. His performances hasn't gone unnoticed either. Today the biggest swedish newspaper Aftonbladet published their top 20 ranking of Superettan players after the first half of the season. Unfortunaly it's behind a paywall but here's a screenshot: Pyzdrowski is ranked in 7th place with this comment: "The man wearing the Peter Cech-helmet has been even better this season. He has made alot of crazy saves and won several points for his team by himself. Easily the best keeper in the league."
Hopefully, he keeps it up and can parlay this into a move to the Allsvenskan next season. Still only 27, so his prime is still ahead of him.
Well, Pyzdrowski pretty much kept Ängelholm in Superettan this season and was the leagues best keeper together with GIF Sundsvalls Tommy Naurin. So with his contract ending there's no big surprise when it's revealed in a recent article that he has already received several offers and that he is awaiting a couple more before he makes his final choice. My interpretation of the article is that he most likely will be moving to another european country.
It will be interesting to see in the upcoming days/weeks which of the two current Helsingborg keepers will be leaving, first choice Pär Hansson or second choice Andreas Linde? That will obviously play a huge part in what role Pyzdrowski will have next season. Hansson used to be one of the best swedish keepers but his form deteriorated substantially after he was given a big new contract with a supposed $300k yearly salary which is ALOT for a keeper. Because of that it has been speculated that Helsingborg might be looking to offload him since their goal this offseason is obviously first and foremost to get their budget back in balance.