Mjällby has a long absence list and this week had to bring in two trial players to be able to train eleven against eleven. Three who are on that list are the regular back line Tom Pettersson, Axel Norén and Abdullah Iqbal.
The substitutes in tonight’s match, Ludvig Svanberg, Christian Tchouante and Ludvig Tidstrand, were initially put to the test on the hard-to-play lawn, which had apparently suffered a lot from the rain that had fallen in recent days. After the quarter played, the aforementioned Svanberg was responsible for an unfortunate pass in his own penalty area, which gave Artis Brno 1-0.
After the goal, there were still a few shaky minutes in the back line before Mjällby took hold of the baton properly.
Jacob Bergström made it 1-1 after half an hour played after a nice cross from Villiam Granath – and minutes later the striker headed in 2-1.
The pitch got worse and worse and thanks to a backward pass that got completely stuck in the grass, Bergström was able to score his third of the evening at the start of the second half.
His replacement, 15-year-old Zebedee Kennedy, scored the final goal of the game when he finished off a beautiful move by tapping the ball into the goal.
After the match, meet Jacob Bergström in the mixed zone with clean and dry clothes.
– This was special. The first half was good to play, but the second half was just fun, says Bergström.
To facilitate materialist Sven Juteskär’s job after the match, the team chose to shower with their clothes on.
– We felt sorry for “Svenne” who has to fight like that today, so we showered with our clothes on. We got most of the mud off and it was quite nice besides.
Bergström has rarely seen a wetter pitch than the one he played on tonight.
– No, not elite football anyway. There was some cup when you were smaller where you had to chip the ball up to take it forward. Otherwise, it probably never happened.
Do you miss Sweden and ten minus degrees when it’s like this?
– Yes, do you do that? You do that, but at the same time freezing temperatures and artificial grass are not fun either.
Karl Marius Aksum, Mjällby’s new head coach, however, has seen wetter pitches.
– I’m guaranteed to have that. I’m from Northern Norway and the grass pitches there are much worse than this. This is nothing, says the coach.
On Friday, both Mjällby and IFK Göteborg play at Estadio Algarve. It remains to be seen how the plan will fare then.
– It doesn’t feel like we can play here then. I don’t know the weather very well down here but it’s probably bad. We’ll probably have to look at some other plan, Bergström thinks.
This is how Mjällby started: Robin Wallinder (Alexander Lundin, 45) – Christian Tchouante, Ludvig Svanberg (Ludwig Malachowski, 45), Ludvig Tidstrand – Villiam Granath (Max Nielsen, 63), Romeo Leandersson, Jesper Gustavsson (Max Nielsen, 63), Elliot Stroud (Timo Stavitski, 63) – Jeppe Kjaer (Teo Helge, 63), Viktor Gustafson (Akí Samuelsen, 63) – Jacob Bergström (Zebedee Kennedy, 63)
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