I’m in great need of some (premier league) football to occupy my mind now.
As mentioned before I don’t mind following Sweden and take great pride in our national team, but it’s still not like following the Fulham (or Hammarby for that matter). The national breaks are inevitable but still too long in between games and the media focus is shifted towards the McLarens, Lagerbäcks, Gerrards, Zlatans etc. I care a great deal, but then again I don’t.
One thing about following Sweden is that it is much more enjoyable away from home. One reason for this is obviously the trip, the sightseeing, the comradeship between fans, the singing, all in all the adventure of being a travelling supporter. I try and get to most games at home but I always leave the ground with a feeling of emptiness even though Sweden most often gets three points at home. The reason for this feeling is most likely the lack of proper support and football ambiance in the ground. Way too many people are there on sponsor tickets and have no real interest in football as a sport, at most a pass time.
Credit where credit is due, things are slowly but surely changing. CampSweden are working hard in order to get more people to sing their hearts out and more fans to wear colours to the games. But as long as the SvFF (the Swedish Football association) will allocate around 50% of the tickets to sponsors we will have a hard time getting a proper support at home.
Tonight Sweden will “only” play a friendly so I can’t get myself worked up over that, I even have agreed to work late so I guess I’ll only see parts of the game.
The next competitive game for Sweden will be away to the “mighty” Lichtenstein in about a months time. That will be a trip to remember! Never been to such a small country before (only 27.000 citizens) but I am a sucker for the Alps so I’m quite sure it will be lovely. The town of Vaduz, where the game is played, is very small, so finding a decent hotel was hard. In the end we’ve decided to stay in Basel (Switzerland) and go by train back and forth to Lichtenstein before and after the game.
I don’t expect us to see a great game, but at least I’ll be one of very few people who ever went to Vaduz, Lichtenstein to watch a football game.
I’m babbling now! See what the lack of premiership footy can do to you!
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Nick-
Too bad that you weren’t back up and running when the U.S. played Sweden at the last break. We could have had some sort of friendly wager. But then again, it’s a good thing you weren’t as I would have lost in a very dower game.
I’ve always enjoyed watching Sweden and it seems I always root for them in the World Cup. I’m not sure what my affinity is, but I do come from Norse roots. Plus, I have a friend who went though some of the coaching licenses with me who is from Sweden and many a year ago played for Malmo. He still brings a local clubs teams over to Sweden every year for some tournament. In fact my girlfriends son will be coming next summer. He also brings Swedish clubs over to our big tournament here called the USA cup. But I digress…
Brian,
Yeah, would have been fun to share some friendly banter before the Sweden-US game. Btw, I still can’t belive that our goal was allowed…
Glad to hear you enjoy watching Sweden, not even all Swedes do 😉 But we seem to be very consistent and hard to beat year in and year out.
Just ask your English friends about when they last beat us 😀
I have a coworker who was over there visiting relatives last summer. She was so put out that everyone stopped what they were doing during the Swedish W.C. games to watch. She was very annoyed that “soccer” was so important. I told her it’s not that it’s important, it’s that it’s life and death. Hahahaha!
It’s funny because I remember some of the Swedish players over the years more than I remember other teams. Again, I’m not sure the affinity. But I always like Kennet Anderson and his Aussie rules football goal celebrations. There there was Larson who year and year gave some amazing efforts and goals. And who can forget the wacky Thomas Ravelli. I thought Thomas Brolin was a fantastic player. And one of my favorite World Cup set pieces was scored by him, when a wall was set to the right of goal. I believe Brolin lined up on the left side of the wall, then peeled out and rotated running behind the wall to near post. The ball was passed over by one player looking as if they were going to bend the ball in direct, but the second player passed the ball deftly to that same far post. Brolin picks the ball up and drills it near post. An execution masterpiece. Today Ibrahimovic is such a great player and so massive. Size, speed and skill. Amazing.
*haha*
Poor girl, she should know that when visiting Europe during the World Cup “everyone” will see the footie…
You have a good memory my friend. That Brolin set piece is excellent and is shown still a couple of times per year over here so I guess I’ll always remember it.
We have some “old school” players too that you might not have seen but might have heard of.
Gre-No-Li (Gren, Nordahl, Liedholm)
Attacking trio that still are ledgends in Italy (and Sweden of course)
Lennart “Nacka” Skoglund
One of the best football entertainers the world has seen. Sadly he fancied his alcohol too much and is no longer with us. He has one of the largest areas in the San Siro museum still though.
Ronnie Hellström
A fatastic goal keeper for Sweden/Hammarby/Kaiserslauten. He played 11 straight seasons for Bundeliga club Kaiserslauten and was voted player of the season on several occasions.
There’s many more to mention, but I guess that will have to be a seperate article on HammyEnd.com 😉
I look forward to the article my friend.