Swedens southermost county and region Skåne (Scania), but in the very north of it just south of Småland. Actually closer to Älmhult in Småland (of IKEA fame) than any of the Scanian metropols, altough it is not much further to Kristiansstad (who also have a team in Damallsvenskan).
I'm afraid it's all change for 2022, (to @Bonnie Lass and @Dernhelm, and anyone else looking for TV info) ...Wnited has no football rights now. It lost the Women's Champions League, and then Damallsvenskan - the league will be streaming on something named "FansEat". But who can afford to eat at those prices? And in Sweden, live games aren't on free TV anymore? SVT lost coverage to TV6 and Viaplay for the next 5 years. Highlights are still here... for now... https://www.obosdamallsvenskan.se/play/latest (Also, SVT's made a documentary: https://www.svtplay.se/flytten-fran-damallsvenskan)
TV6 is a free channel (for some at least) and they will air 2 games per week I think. Productions definitely better than Aftonbladet who had the main rights last year. But I guess you need Viaplay and VPN to watch them from abroad.
I will have to check out some of those options eventually. Fanseat *is* pretty pricey per match, but £9.99 a month isn't bad. At least you don't have to buy an entire sports package (Norway's TV2, grrrr) to get access. For about $35-ish dollars a month, I get access to Toppserien, Rema 1000 handball league (men and women) and even some national team matches, all on Direktsport, no VPN needed, as well as access to 70+ Norwegian papers. The only downside is TV2 and Viaplay, iirc, usually snap up the rights to bigger matches.
Do y'all think we should do a TV/streaming thread? For leagues as well as int'l matches and tourneys?
This was talked about earlier in this thread, so wanted to throw this out there. This ws my reply to a post on Kvinnefotballmagasinet's FB page after the editor lamented the lack of women's football popularity in Norway, after posting about the CL attendance record set today: ==== Toppserien has never tried to be a truly top league, though, and never went after big name players. Damallsvenskan did for a while, but they couldn't keep up as women's teams with backing from top men's teams emerged. Now they're both struggling for relevancy. Toppserien, Damallsvenskan and Kvindeligaen should take 4 or 5 teams each and form a Scandinavian super league of sorts. A combined league could provide more sponsors, better TV/streaming deals, more viewers and more interest from top players. As well as a higher level of competition. The domestic leagues could more or less stay the same, give or take some teams moving up from Div1 to fill any gaps. Maybe even have relegation/promotion into the combined league.
Nothing maybe about that, it is a dealbreaker, without relegation/promotion there are pretty much no chance that any Swedish team would be interested and less chance that the Swedish FA would accept it (and no chance that a FA board that approved it would be re-elected).
I think UEFA explicitly forbids cross country leagues. What may happen is single clubs from one country participating in another's league (like Monaco in France, Vanduz in Switzerland, Cardiff and Swansea in England etc.).
Netherlands and Belgium had a combined league some years ago if I recall correctly, but it dissolved after a few seasons. The domestic league always has a special place in European football regardless of the competitiveness at international level. But I have mentioned it earlier that I would like to see a Nordic winter cup as warm-up to the latter stages of the European season.
GW 2 Very interesting start to the season I must say, no team managed to win their two opening games and some surprising results. IFK Kalmar - AIK 3-1 (Kemppi 2, Pantuso - Hayashi) Kalmar bounced back from their tough start last weekend and took a convincing win over a poor AIK. Häcken - Hammarby 4-1 (Larsen 2, Gejl, OG - Nyström) Losing to Häcken no disaster but ambitious Hammarby with two very poor performances at the start of the season now. Their defense need to shape up, two pens and an own goal. 2nd Häcken penalty possibly the clearest hand ball ever Piteå - Kristianstad 2-2 (OG, F Andersson - Tindell, Viens) Piteå had a good chance to win this one as they played 11 v 10 for a good 50 mins, but they failed to finish it off and also missed a penalty. Brommapojkarna - Umeå IK 3-0 (Prakt, Thörnqvist, Andrup) Biggest surprise of the round for me. Only a few weeks ago Umeå beat them 4-1 in the cup, but Brommapojkarna clearly learned their lesson. Eskilstuna United - Linköpings FC 0-2 (Vangsgaard, Kapocs) Eskilstuna were impressive in the first round, this time not at all. Linköping on the other hand looked very strong, maybe they're ready to be a top team again? KIF Örebro - Djurgården 2-0 (Pikkujämsä, Rantanen) Djurgården one of two teams on 0 points and they are really not looking good so far. Two Finnish goals sealed it for Örebro. Vittsjö - Rosengård 1-1 (Rantala - Schough) Playing at Vittsjö is never easy and a last second goal from Rantala got them a point here against a Rosengård who dominated but still aren't sharp enough with their finishing. ✅ Så här gick det i den andra omgången av #obosdamallsvenskan. pic.twitter.com/g1S6fsLPcJ— OBOS Damallsvenskan (@_OBOSDamallsv) April 4, 2022
Sweden v Ireland tomorrow, I'm so excited!! https://www.instagram.com/reel/CcIxWtmvk0v/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Damallsvenskan teams have been busy after the International break and played another 3 rounds. BK Häcken and FC Rosengård played 2-2 (Larsen, Kaneryd - Persson, Seger) in the top match the other day to complete the 5th round. Häcken dominant but close match in number of chances. Close in the table too and those 2 do look the strongest and most consistent so far, as expected. We've seen a lot of close games and good news is we're yet to see any huge scorelines despite the expansion of the league. Djurgården took their first win of the season in round 5 by beating Eskilstuna 2-0 (Dowd, Lundin) Hammarby were also on 0 points after 2 rounds but now on 6 after two home wins against Piteå 1-0 and Umeå IK 2-0 (Hasund, Wangerheim) Nominated for player of the month in April are: Danish forw Amalie Vangsgaard, Linköpings FC American forw Tabby Tindell, Kristianstads DFF Finnish def/midf Elli Pikkujämsä, KIF Örebro Vangsgaard hattrick v Hammarby
Damallsvenskan GW 6 Eskilstuna United - IFK Kalmar 1-0 (Rombing) Brommapojkarna - Piteå IF 0-1 (Eiriksdottir) Piteå robbed on a goal, refs somehow missed that this ball bounced well inside the goal. Thankfully they won anyway. Umeå IK - AIK 2-0 (Åberg-Zingmark, Honkanen) Linköpings FC - KIF Örebro 1-0 (Takarada) Very dominant display from Linköping who could have had a bigger win. Djurgården - Kristianstads DFF 1-0 (Johansson) Perhaps most surprising result of the round. I expected Kristianstad to win here, but they are very inconsistent so far and are losing ground in the Champions League race. Djurgården with their 2nd win in a row after the 4 losses at the start of the season. Highlights: Rosengård - Hammarby 4-1 (Sanders, Schough 2, Sprung - Larsson) Closer game than scoreline suggests with Hammarby actually being the dominant team in the 1st half. But again their defense let them down and Rosengård in the end too strong. Goals: Vittsjö - Häcken 0-0 As usual no piece of cake beating Vittsjö away, they have taken points of both Häcken and Rosengård already now. Highlights:
Not seen any highlights yet, but was played last night so will probably show up at https://www.obosdamallsvenskan.se/ tonight. Well placed low header. Pics from match: https://www.facebook.com/LinkopingsFC/posts/466213181955140
I guess not everyone thinks it's a bad idea. Kill today's Toppserien system - will form Scandinavian 'Super League'
What's weird is that the absolute best chance of the match (Vittsjö-Häcken), Kaneryd's shot off the bar, isn't in the highlights...
Matchday 7 KIF Örebro - IFK Kalmar 4-2 (Kovacs, Rantanen, Hellstrom, Steigleder - Walker x2) Piteå IF - Eskilstuna United 1-2 (Imo - Jalkerud, own goal) Kristianstads DFF - Brommapojkarna 4-1 (van den Bulk x2, Tindell, Petrovic - Boriero) Hammarby - Vittsjö 2-2 (Larsson, Janogy - Stratigakis, Polkinghorne) Häcken - Linköpings FC 2-0 (Kaneryd, Rubensson) Highlights with 2 nice goals and a red card for Nilla Fischer: AIK - Djurgården 2-4 (Asher, Collin - own goal, Dowd x2, Lundin) Very eventful Stockholm derby, where in the end Djurgården won their 3rd match in a row. Due to the poor start of the season with 1 win in 7 games AIK fired their head coach Maiju Ruotsalainen along with their assistant coach plus the sporting director Anne Mäkinen after the match. Highlights: Umeå IK - FC Rosengård 0-3 (Sprung, Berglund, Bredgaard) 17 year old Bea Sprung with another goal, she is one of the big teenage talents in Damallsvenskan this season. 🔥 17-åriga Bea Sprung! pic.twitter.com/kuJCEPPQTs— OBOS Damallsvenskan (@_OBOSDamallsv) May 9, 2022
another 3 rounds played and we're starting to see where this is all going. Still a tight race at the top with Linköping still challenging title favourites Rosengård and Häcken and rest of top 6 not far behind either. Häcken dropped points at Piteå in the last round and had some problems breaking down IFK Kalmar in this round, but eventually took a solid 3-1 win. Highlights: Hammarby had a disappointing start to the season and looks like it will be tough for them to reach Europe. Important 2-1 win for them yesterday away in the Stockholm derby against Djurgården. Highlights: At the bottom AIK already fired the coach a few games back but no improvement after that. 9 straight losses now after winning the opening match of the season. Will be tough to come back from his but not a huge gap up yet. Brommapojkarna looking like the other clear direct relegation candidate so far, but Umeå and IFK Kalmar not far ahead of them. Crowd average so far sits at a fairly mediocre 799. Hammarby on top as expected and Häcken has also managed to attract solid crowds after their identity change from Kopparbergs/Göteborg. IFK Kalmar crowd numbers are just SHOCKING after moving to a bigger stadium. But on the other hand perhaps not very surprising that them signing a gazillion foreign players didn't appeal to the public, nothing homegrown to cheer for anymore. Brommapojkarna being down there is no surprise, they've never had a big fanbase despite claiming to be the biggest club in Europe (based on number of active teams at the club). Disappointing to see the old crowd magnet Umeå down there .
How are IFK Göteborg doing sporting and attendance wise now? I remember they were in contention of taking over the Kopparberg project before Häcken did, but decided to continue in the lower leagues and build for the future.