New season starting on Saturday! Bad news: no TV games scheduled Great news: All 132 games will be streamed on damallsvenskan.tv. Not geo-blocked, but costs 89 SEK (roughly €10) per game, or 169 SEK per month. Watch for free until May 5th. Squads and transfers on the spelare12 blog Most people seem to agree that Linköping is the only team that can challenge Rosengård for the title and I think they will! Behind them it looks like everyone can beat everyone. Here's some short information about the teams and my predictions for the season: 1 Linköping....They have slaughtered a lot of opponents in the preseason and has a great attack with Danish star Pernille Harder and up and coming Swedish star Stina Blackstenius. Portuguese captain Claudia Neto controlling the midfield and solid defenders like Swedish NT defenders Samuelsson and Ericsson. 2 Rosengård....Plenty of international stars like Marta, Enganamouit, Martens, Andonova and Riley. Still the team to beat and anything but gold will of course be a disappointment. Defense looking more solid with the new coach. 3 Vittsjö....Surprise of the season? Some nice aquisitions like nigerians Okobi and Chukwunonye. Scotland international Iffy Dieke and Finnish Linda Sällström are other players in a very international squad. 4 Eskilstuna....Big changes for last year's runner up loosing Enganamouit and Petra Larsson among others. Many promising Swedish players like Malin Diaz, Marija Banusic, Olivia Schough and Mimmi Larsson. The English-Irish-Icelandic defense is the same as last year. 5 Piteå...Hard work will get them a new spot in the upper half? Defender of the year 2015 Faith Ikidi is still in the squad. Many promising Swedish U23 players. But who will score the goals when Hammarlund is gone? 6 Göteborg....Out with the dutchies and in with Swedish talent. Pauline Hammarlund is a nice signing and she will surely score some goals. Elin Rubensson is another key player. 7 Umeå....Half the team recovering from injuries. Struggling financially and has a young but talented squad. Some strong players too like Swedish NT players Lina Hurtig, Hanna Folkesson, Jenny Hjohlman plus nigerian Rita Chikwelu. 8 Örebro....Big changes here with a few club icons leaving. Melissa Tancredi and Veronica Perez have joined the club. Nigerian Ogonna Chukwudi and talented midfielder Michelle De Jongh are keys to success. 9 Kristianstad...Struggling financially like many other teams and has a pretty anonymous squad. Ivorian Ida Guehai scored the goals last year and Danish winger Johanna Rasmussen will surely get some assists. 10 Djurgården....Newcomers with lots of new signings. Katrin Schmidt and Emilia Appelqvist are very good signings in the midfield. 11 Kvarnsveden....Newbie and unexperienced squad. A few Americans on the team and Malawi striker Tabita Chawinga is a true super talent. 12 Mallbacken...Survived last season thanks to better goal difference than Hammarby. Scottish, New Zealand and Australian NT-players in the squad.
I thought the season had already started? At least that what's been said during the Rosengard CL encounter...?
Week 1 Sat 16/04/16 Rosengård 15:00 Kristianstad Sun 17/04/16 KIF Örebro 13:00 Umeå Kvarnsveden 13:00 Vittsjö Piteå 14:00 Göteborg Linköping 16:00 Mallbacken Eskilstuna United 17:00 Djurgården Surprising weather forecast for the 1st round in one of the major news programmes
Round 1 results. Many close games, it's gonna be an interesting season. Sat 16/04/16 Rosengård 2-1 Kristianstad Unfortunately last year's top scorer Gaelle Enganamouit picked up an ACL injury. Sun 17/04/16 KIF Örebro 1-1 Umeå Kvarnsveden 1-1 Vittsjö Piteå 2-0 Göteborg Linköping 4-2 Mallbacken Eskilstuna United 2-1 Djurgården
Goal from U20 midfielder Michelle De Jongh voted best goal of matchday 1. Röstningen klar! 42% av rösterna ansåg @KIFOrebro @meandmysoccer 1-0 var omgångens snyggaste ! Goal of the round! pic.twitter.com/yPZCqxp3ZP— OBOS Damallsvenskan (@_OBOSDamallsv) April 19, 2016
Not match-related, but here's a fundraising link for KDFF. I guess the financial struggle noted above is quite bad now. I hope they don't wind down before season's end (hopefully not at all). http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/help-save-kdff/
Ok, so I've been incredibly lame at updating this thread but today is the game of the season! Linköping vs Rosengård Can be watched at SVT Play at 4pm CET. Big crowd and bad weather expected! Linköping tops the league two points ahead of Rosengård before the game. And with only three games remaining after this one it may well decide who grabs the title. Rosengård has beaten Linköping twice (cups) this season and the first league game ended with a draw. But this will be the first game played in Linköping. At the other end former super club Umeå IK is fighting to avoid relegation. Mallbacken is very likely to be relegated and will be joined by Umeå or Kristianstad.
Not the most exciting game ever and played in cold and wet weather. Very disciplined defenses left very little space for attacking. Result could have gone either way but Norwegian international Kristine Minde scored the only goal for Linköping and surely they will win Damallsvenskan now being five points ahead with only three games to go. Goal Full game also at SVT Play
Congrats to Linkoping for their fine win over what should of been the favorites, Rosengaard. With a 5 point lead, their most likely to win the league title. Now their only worry(for next season) will be if Rosengaard will steal all their top players! lol Pernel Harder for Ballon d'or!
That was 2016 - bumping the thread in hope of more news and/or more photos of the picturesque Stockholm Olympic Stadium where Djurgården play. Previous threads with @jocasta, @flax, @JanBalk and @silver_eagle: 2014, 2015 (Maria Hägglöf, cc-by) Quick uninformed look back at 2017 - Linköping repeated as champions, 9 points ahead of Rosengård. That's despite Rosengård winning 3-0 away at LFC, and drawing 2-2 at home. Linköping didn't drop many points in their other games: 16 wins, 3 draws, 3 losses. - Rosengård lost some key players, Marta to Orlando, Lieke Martens to Barça, and captain Emma Berglund to PSG. - Malawi's Tabitha Chawinga scored 26 times and won the best striker award, but she couldn't stop relegation for her team Kvarnsveden, and she also left Sweden for China's league, where she's doing equally well. 2018 ...Does anyone follow this league anymore? It's towards the end of the season now, and the title race is extremely close. With 4 games to go, the table is currently 1 Piteå IF 39pts, 2 Rosengård 36pts, 3 Gothenburg 35pts, 4 Kristianstad 32pts Piteå (photo from sverigesradio.se) In week 17, Piteå overtook Rosengård at the top, then in week 18 both clubs beat tough opposition, but Gothenburg lost to Hammarby. There are weekly reports in English by Sophie Lawson and Katja Kragelund on Vavel. - https://www.vavel.com/en/tag/damallsvenskan/ (WP)
I still follow the league but I've been too lazy to write about it since 2016 it seems. But I have to say that this probably is one of the most exciting and fun seasons ever so here are some thoughts with 18/19 out of 22 matches played. We don't have the top top European teams or the big stars in the league anymore but we do have 11 good teams with a mix of Swedish talent and some decent Internationals. They all can beat eachother which makes every match very difficult to predict. League leaders Piteå for example have lost twice to 10th placed Vittsjö this season. (We also have 1 very bad team) Battle fo the title: League leaders Piteå perhaps benefitting the most of all the stars leaving as they didn't really have any big stars to begin with. They have a popular coach who draws Swedish talents to the club. No fancy football played her just a very well organized and hard working team. They are a team that can beat anyone but also loose to anyway. Margains have been with them this season and they have a lot of 1 goal wins, but must say they do work hard to get those margains as they never ever give up. Rosengård still wants to be a big European team and have a lot of good internationals still like veterans Mittag and Seger. You can sort of see that they have the capacity to be better than all the other teams in the league but they still end up falling flat on their face surprisingly often. 3rd placed Göteborg also have big ambitions (or wild fantasies) and plenty of internationals and want to play the Champions League-final in Gothenburg in 2021 . They started the season quite poorly and depended too much on star forward Christen Press. When she left they actually started to play fottball and soared to the top. They were league leaders two rounds ago before a recent meltdown. The very physical 4th placed team Kristianstad score too few goals to really challenge for the championship. Last year's champions Linköping (5th) still with a tiny chance to reach top 2. Linköping lost loads of top players the last few years (Harder and Neto for example) and are building a team of big Scandinavian talents, but could use some more experienced players probably. Some exciting matches still to come before season is over: Piteå v Linköping (today), Rosengård v Piteå, Göteborg v Rosengård. Battle to avoid relgation: LB07 had lost every match after the summer and looked like dead fish . But now they've won two in a row and suddenly 5-6 teams are involved in the relegation battle again. Newcomers Växjö have done well with their possession style football and should survive. They have top scorer and rising star Anna Anvegård in the squad. Stockholm teams Djurgården and Hammarby have looked pretty bland this year . Though Hammarby have a habit of ruining it for top teams and have beaten both Rosengård and Göteborg (twice) this year. Eskilstuna United have been a top team in recent years but started the season with like 9 ( ) injured defenders and never really quite recovered and find them self in the relegation battle now. Also just lost their best player Glas to PSG. Vittsjö lost their top scorer Sällstrom to Paris this summer and now struggle to score those winning goals. Might face relegation despite beating Piteå twice. Battle lost: The Damallsvenskan debut for IFK Kalmar turned into a nightmare. Too little squad depth and a million injuries so their hope died quite early. Top scorers:
Piteå 4-2 Linköping. Very eventful and fun match in a nearly full stadium (takes 3000). Piteå were a bit lucky that Linköping had to put a 17 yo debutant in goal (Labbé away with Canada and reserve gk injured) otherwise they might have dropped points here. Piteå remain 3 points clear at the top and Linköping missed the last chance to reach Champions League next year. Highlights: https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=283997732436756
Oh, ok, I had somehow lost track of Labbé, one of my favourite GKs, lately. I had probably read about her move to Sweden, after she had been ruled out of a Canadian men's team at the last moment, but then I had somehow forgot about that. Did she have a good season? Does she look like she could be first choice for Canadian NT? P.S. I feel for the poor 17 yo who was exposed this way: judging from highlights, she even looked maybe a little too much short, beyond being of course quite awkward. What's her name? Wish her a second game better than her debut.
Labbé joined Linköping (her 3rd Swedish club, also played för Piteå and Örebro) this summer because their Swedish NT keeper Hilda Carlén is pregnant. I think she has looked better and better but not super impressive so far. Julia Nyström is the name of this young goalkeeper who is part of their U19 squad. Very difficult match to make a senior debut in for sure. Yes, not the biggest of goalkeepers and was faced with this very physical team that loves to lift balls into the penalty area.
I saw that whole game, it was one of the best I've seen this year! Especially 1st half. From the same day, 2nd-placed Rosengård away at Vittsjö (10th), including a goal by Anja Mittag from Germany. Highlights so good, they uploaded them twice. Vittsjö 1 - 2 Rosengård, 30 Sep 2018
First congratulations to Kungsbacka DFF who have been promoted to Damallsvenskan for the first time after winning Elitettan. This club is mostly known for it's economic problems so we'll see how this goes but good luck!! Now.... VERY exciting final week coming up for Damallsvenskan, starting Monday night with the big clash between Rosengård and Piteå. If Piteå win they get their first league title. If Rosengård win they will be equal on points with Piteå before the last matchday on Saturday and with Göteborg only 1 point behind. Kind of hope Rosengård will win this match just to have 3 teams left in the title race for that last matchday. Rosengård v Piteå tomorrow (18:30) is aired by SVT (free but geo-blocked): https://www.svtplay.se/video/193489...otboll-damallsvenskan-22-okt-18-30?start=auto Top 3 before the match tomorrow: 1. Piteå 45 points, +14 (20 matches) 2. Göteborg 44 points, +25 (21 matches) 3. Rosengård 42 points, +38 (20 matches) Whoever was in charge of the schedule for this season deserves a medal because on Saturday we also have the match Göteborg v Rosengård where hopefully both teams have a chance to win the league. Would be first league title for Göteborg. Rosengård risk missing Champions League for the first time in many years. Piteå play mid-table team Växjö at home on Saturday in front of a surely packed little stadium so they have on paper the easier match. Both Vittsjö and LB07 won their matches this weekend so at the bottom we also have a big battle between 3 teams on Saturday about avoiding to get relegated. 9. Hammarby 24 points, -7 10. Vittsjö 23 points, +3 -------------------- 11. LB07 23 points, -16 Also here a big match on Saturday: Hammarby v Vittsjö, while LB07 play at home against 8th placed Djurgården.
Rosengård took a well deserved 1-0 win in the top match against Piteå last night. Anja Mittag had several chances but needed very bad mistake from Piteå defender June Pedersen to manage to score. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=308749666617455 Rosengård and Piteå are now equal on points with Göteborg 1 point behind so we will probably get the most exciting final day in Damallsvenskan ever. 3 teams can still win it and 3 teams can still get relegated. 1. Rosengård 45 points, +39 2. Piteå 45 points, +13 3. Göteborg 44 points, +25 4. Kristianstad 38 5. Linköping 31 6. Växjö 29 7. Eskilstuna 28 8. Djurgården 26 9. Hammarby 24 points, -7 10. Vittsjö 23 points, +3 -------------------- 11. LB07 23 points, -16 12. Kalmar 3 Final round on Saturday: Eskilstuna v Kalmar Göteborg v Rosengård Linköping v Kristianstad Piteå v Växjö LB07 v Djurgården Hammarby v Vittsjö More highlights from the last round: Vittsjö started the Sunday below the relegation line but looked inspired against Eskilstuna and won comfortably 4-0. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=244712083068625 Kristianstad suffered their first home defeat of the season 1-5 against a very good looking Göteborg. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1230086497133160 Piteå will be a bit worried as their final opponents Växjö looked pretty good when they beat Hammarby 5-1. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=261175001205847 Poor Kalmar lost for the 20th time this season, this time 0-3 tio LB07. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=507645439714295
Big match Göteborg v Rosengård aired by SVT tomorrow at 15:30. Free but geo-blocked. Two attacking minded teams that both need to win the match, should be good! https://www.svtplay.se/video/193779...otboll-damallsvenskan-27-okt-15-15?start=auto
Piteå IF are the new Champions! Hard work does pay off sometimes! Probably the most surprising champions ever, noone really believed in them this season. Impressive from the little club from the little town in the far north. They've had to work hard for almost every win this season so this must feel good! No big names or stars in the squad but lots of up and coming Swedes that have been attracted to the club for it's reputation of being good at developing players. All the champions: GK: Cajsa Andersson (25), Moa Öhman (20) DF: Lena Blomkvist (28), Emelie Lövgren (28), Linnea Selberg (18), Faith Ikidi (31, Nigeria), Ronja Aronsson (20), June Pedersen (33, Norway) MF: Ellen Löfqvist (21), Jocelynn Blankenship (24, USA), Linn Viklund (24), Johanna Antti (19), Julia Karlernäs (25), Selina Henriksson (20), Elin Bragnum (24) FW: Andrea Norheim (19, Norway), Madelen Janogy (22), Nina Jakobsson (23), Cecilia Edlund (24) In the final match they had the biggest win of the season, beating Växjö 6-1. As usual they score a lot of goals on set pieces. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=344012846405404 Göteborg kicked Rosengård down to 3rd place after beating them 4-2. Göteborg had 2-0 at half time after two beautiful goals from Elin Rubensson. Rosengård came back to 2-2 early in the 2nd half and looked the likelier team to win the match but In the closing minutes Göteborg countered in the winning goal. Result means Göteborg will play Champions League instead of Rosengård next season. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=2199977240244801 Sad day for Hammarby. Never has a relegated team taken so many points, they won 8 out of 22 matches, beat Göteborg twice and Rosengård once, but it wasn't enough. They started the day in 9th place but dropped down to 11th after loosing 0-3 to Vittsjö who started the day one behind them. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=328860737907271 LB07 started the day in 11th place but did just enough to also pass Hammarby by beating Djurgården 1-0. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=255392471826842 Last year's champions Linköping ended in 5th place. They were actually closer to relegation than to defending their title.
Congrats to June Pedersen and Andrea Norheim! June must be so relieved her terrible backpass against Rosengård a few days ago didn't cost Piteå the championship. I'm very impressed by Piteå. Coming from a small town with just over 20 000 people. They are almost a polar circle club, just 100 km south, and their average league attendance is around 2000, which must be one of the best in Europe. They've created a product up there that many could learn from.
For some reason I was surprised they'd had snow in Piteå on October 27... It's like, "yeah, duh"... ❅❅❆❆❄❄ ☃ Well done to Piteå! It'll be interesting to see what they can do in the Champions League.