“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Samuel Wikman trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nobody at Orebro will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Chovanie Amatkarijo may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Dino Salihović signs something — a contract at Orebro or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Orebro that is a harder question to answer.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Erman Hrastovina will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Orebro the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Orebro has been clear about where Max Watson stands, which is more than many ever get.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Aulon Bitiqi is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
The dugout6 Dec 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Samuel Wikman's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Orebro than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Orebro that is a harder question to answer.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Orebro have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Orebro, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
Position 13 on 30 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Orebro is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The instruction came from the boardroom and the dugout did not agree with it. Somebody will go, the fee will be called good business, and the manager will spend the season rebuilding around the space.
Successful dribbles: 23. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Jacob Ortmark was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The dugout8 Nov 2027
Samuel Wikman is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Squad8 Nov 2027
A place in the month's best eleven for Måns Isaksson
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Måns Isaksson has come out of that comparison in the side, and Orebro have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Sivert Sira Hansen was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Oscar Tankovic after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Successful dribbles: 15. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Max Watson has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Zois Karargyris is 20, and for one weekend he was the best of everybody his age in the division. Nobody should build a career on it and everybody quietly does.
The dugout1 Nov 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Erik McCue's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Orebro lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Position 14 and 23 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Orebro they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Something was said to Eddy Davis and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The dugout11 Oct 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Samuel Wikman's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Öster next, and one man in the Orebro dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Orebro is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Sivert Sira Hansen was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Words at Orebro training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jakub Ojrzyński is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Orebro, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Måns Isaksson has moved up it.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Jacob Ortmark’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Orebro needing him to play as if none of it matters.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Orebro would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
The bid was some way short and Orebro did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Words at Orebro training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jakub Ojrzyński is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. IK Sirius have kept their man, and Orebro go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Orebro this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
At 20 he is being measured against the rest of the division's kids and coming out in front. The senior version of this award is where the club would like this to lead.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Orebro, and it is not being withdrawn.
$3.1M on the table at IFK Goteborg. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Boardroom23 Aug 2027
Orebro close the window on a squad of their own making
11 in and 3 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Orebro asked and IFK Goteborg said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Oscar Tankovic after the 2‑2 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The phone has started ringing about Erman Hrastovina again, and this time the name on the line is Utsikten. Orebro are listening politely and promising nothing.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Degerfors have kept their man, and Orebro go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Oscar Tankovic after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Orebro will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
In brief
The dugoutJohn Stenberg has become a man the manager trusts
Sivert Sira Hansen was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. NK Maribor have kept their man, and Orebro go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Zois Karargyris has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
Samuel Wikman was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.27. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Jacob Ortmark, and the manager let it.
The dugout9 Aug 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Oscar Tankovic, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 91th minute. Degerfors will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Player ratings26 Jul 2027
A brace, and Samuel Wikman takes the afternoon — 8.71
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Samuel Wikman provided it, and the 8.71 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Helsingborg is saying, and nobody at Orebro is enjoying the guessing.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. IFK Goteborg have kept their man, and Orebro go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He is 22 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Orebro, and it is not being withdrawn.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Oscar Tankovic after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
7 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Måns Isaksson is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Orebro told Dino Salihović something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
In brief
The dugoutSamuel Wikman knocks on the manager’s door
Position 16 and 10 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Dino Salihović, and the manager let it.
The dugout28 Jun 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Oscar Tankovic to a room that had heard them before.
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
The dugout28 Jun 2027
Erik McCue is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
IFK Norrkoping next, and one man in the Orebro dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Samuel Wikman signs something — a contract at Orebro or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Aarhus Fremad waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Orebro is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
9 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Orebro this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Orebro can tell you which week it ends in.
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑3, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
The dugout7 Jun 2027
Rasmus Holten is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 19 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Nobody at Orebro is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
BK Hacken next, and one man in the Orebro dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Orebro will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout17 May 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Oscar Tankovic to a room that had heard them before.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say John Stenberg is on it.
The dugout17 May 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Erik McCue's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Hammarby next, and one man in the Orebro dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Chovanie Amatkarijo may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Orebro will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Orebro have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Orebro, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Kotaro Uchino falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
11 combined actions and 6.90. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Squad19 Apr 2027
5 new faces, and Orebro are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Orebro will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Orebro will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Orebro can pretend not to have heard.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Sivert Sira Hansen and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Kotaro Uchino falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
8.03. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Orebro will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say John Stenberg is on it.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
GAIS will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Mohamed Bawa has pre-agreed a move to Orebro, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Örgryte in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Felix Rhodin has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Orebro have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Level with 90 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Orebro had all but put away. Kalmar FF will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
There was one mistake and it ended in the net. Defenders are judged on the worst thing they did rather than on the eighty-nine minutes either side of it, which is unfair and is also the job.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Oscar Tankovic was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Orebro dressing room was either.
IK Brage next, and one man in the Orebro dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑1 against Sandviken, and it could have been more.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
A brace, and Samuel Wikman takes the afternoon — 8.32
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Samuel Wikman provided it, and the 8.32 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Oscar Tankovic, on a 4‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Orebro have gone to IK Sirius with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
GIF Sundsvall will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Marc Manchón has pre-agreed a move to Orebro, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Orebro asked and Bodo/Glimt said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Martin Granqvist has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Adam Forsberg has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. John Claesson is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Jakob Olsson is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.