Birthing a new section of this newsletter, dedicated to keeping up to date with the Swedes who are out and about playing their football. There will be the occasional Damallsvenskan (Rosa Kafaji) chat too, considering that most leagues other than the NWSL and the Swedish one have wrapped up this weekend. I know I know, impeccable timing as always, buuuuut we need to start hyping the World Cup WHICH IS ONLY 52 DAYS AWAY.
It’s also the Champion’s League final next weekend and I’m almost coming apart at the seams with excitement!! We’ve got a big battle of the Swedes between FC Barcelona’s Fridolina Rolfö and Wolfsburg’s Rebecca Blomqvist.
FC Barcelona coasted home the league for a consecutive fourth time, but lost their first league game in two seasons (since June 2021) on the last day of the season as Madrid CFF beat them 2-1 (what I love about Madrid CFF: they play at the Fernando Torres stadium <3 what i dislike: their home AND away kit have way too much pink). Not the finish to the season, nor the warm-up to the CL final that they were looking for but nonetheless. Rolfö was not in the match day squad for the game.
Blomqvist’s Wolfsburg was involved in an exciting down-to-the wire title race, but they needed Bayern München to draw or lose, simultaneously winning their own game in order to grab the title. In the end, Bayern put on a convincing performance with a definitive 11-1 win against already-relegated Turbine Potsdam, and although Wolfsburg did their job, winning against Freiburg, it had little effect on the final outcome. There had been rumours about Blomqvist leaving the club, but on the day of the game she was not presented with any flowers, as opposed to other team mates leaving the club like Pauline Bremer, suggesting that a move might not be in the cards just yet.
In England it was also going down to the last day, with Chelsea and Manchester United both gunning for that title. Although Chelsea were poised to take it home, expected to win against already-relegated Reading and making it their fourth consecutive league title, it has been an exciting run-up to the season finale. It’s been CLOSE, and it’s easy to forget the fact that United are playing in the Champion’s League next season, ahead of the likes of Manchester City. There were title celebrations abound for Magdalena Eriksson, Johanna Rytting Kaneryd and Zećira Mušović. For Eriksson the very last ones, as it was made official that she’s leaving Chelsea alongside her girlfriend Pernille Harder, and the pair is rumoured to have München as their next destination. Stina Blackstenius and Lina Hurtig’s Arsenal finished in third place despite losing 2-0 to Aston Villa on the final day, but clinching a European spot ahead of Filippa Angeldahl’s Manchester City in fourth on goal difference. City played Hanna Bennison’s and Nathalie Björn’s Everton and were 3-0 up with 10 minutes to go before conceding two late goals. The Evertonians finish in 6th place, four places better than last year and ahead of Merseyside rivals Liverpool.
Juventus, who played Roma on the last day of the Serie A Femminile, shockingly won 5-2 and that’s an interesting result going into the Italian Women’s Cup final against the capital city team on Sunday. Paulina Nyström opened the scoring for the Bianconeri, and Amanda Nildén is back in the squad after nursing a persistent injury (there’s a great interview with the winger here discussing Juve’s season and her battle with returning to the pitch). Linda Sembrandt and Evelina Duljan also came on in the second half, with Duljan having seen some playing time this season despite it being her first, and despite her young age and relative inexperience. She is a very exciting prospect! Not that that result mattered in the league, as the gold celebrations had already started in central Italy with Roma convincingly winning the league, breaking up Juventus dominance. They have a whole host of Swedish players in the squad (albeit none of them regular starters) - two goalkeepers in Stephanie Öhrström and Emma Lind, the two defenders Beata Kollmats and Elin Landström, and Alva Selerud up top. Another attacking player and Sweden’s captain, Kosovare Asllani, is back playing for AC Milan after a lengthy injury-break, which is great news ahead of this summer’s tournament. AC finished third, with Pauline Hammarlund’s Fiorentina finishing in fourth place.
There’s a new format to the Serie A Femminile that was inaugurated this season, where they’ve gone similar to the Scottish route with a split. They play 18 games of the regular season, before splitting the table in two - creating the ‘scudetto pool’ and the ‘survival pool’. Then the top and bottom half teams play each other twice more (eight more games) before the season finishes, with two Champion’s League qualification spots up for grabs, and 1,5 relegation spots (meaning the second-to-last team plays a relegation playoff match against the second-placed team in Serie B). They also reduced the league from 12 to 10 teams, to make it more competitive and make the split easier.
Goalkeeper Emma Holmgren got to win D1 Féminine for a second time with Lyon, before she’s now poised to leave the club, destination yet unknown but rumours have been talking about Rosengård. They beat Amanda Ilestedt’s PSG to the title.
Over in the NWSL, Mimmi Larsson and Hanna Glas’ KC Current is not doing that well at the minute, bottom of the league with seven losses and two wins in nine games. Sofia Jakobsson’s San Diego Wave is doing better, currently on fourth on the same amount of points as both third and second place, only separated by goal difference. When talking about Swedish players, we could also include Orlando Pride’s Marta Vieira Da Silva and Angel City FC’s Ali Riley, who both have Swedish citizenship but have become that later - they’ve not grown up in the country nor represented the national team.
Olivia Schough is ripping it up in Sweden for Rosengård and with this form heading towards the World Cup, if she does not get a lot of playing time and make an impact, I will be very surprised. She is riding high on confidence right now and that’s important. Rosa Kafaji continues to make the case for why she should be considered, making life difficult for Peter Gerhardsson. She scored these two wondergoals against top-placed Piteå to help BK Häcken move past the northern team to claim top spot. Talking about Damallsvenskan: there’s a lot of drama out width what happens on the pitch. As the season was about to start at the end of March, there had been no agreement reached in the CBA (collective bargaining agreement) and over two months later, well into the season, they still haven’t found a solution to the issues. The existing contract which had run out in December 2022! The conflict is between the federation and the players association, who did not manage to come to an agreement, bringing in a third party, the employer alliance. They represent the interests of the clubs (rather than the players specifically) and they’ve made clear they want to negotiate with the labour union.
What it means is that all the players in the top division in Sweden play without any sort of insurance or protection when it comes to their rights as labour workers. In a field where injuries are rife, to not have the protection of knowing the club has an obligation to cover the salaries of an injured player is not a great state of mind to be in. All they’ve got to go on are the agreements made with their own club, and this gets very precarious for players in clubs that do not have the same sort of financial stability as other clubs do. Currently there’s no information about where the different parties are in their negotiations.