Marcus Mehnert wins it after the whistle should have gone
95 minutes played. Marcus Mehnert found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Varbergs BoIS went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Marcus Mehnert provided it, and the 8.88 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what GIF Sundsvall can pretend not to have heard.
GIF Sundsvall have gone to IFK Norrkoping 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.
Add another name to the list: Västerås SK have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Alexandros Pantelidis. The answer from GIF Sundsvall has not changed — yet.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Words at GIF Sundsvall training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Martin Hellan 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.
At 23 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.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
16 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Östersund were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Two goals and a mark of 9.22 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at GIF Sundsvall is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Lucas Forsberg 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.
Squad12 Jul 2027
Words at GIF Sundsvall training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Martin Hellan 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.
Half the programme played, position 14, 11 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
In brief
Boardroom102% of the income goes out in wages at GIF Sundsvall
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Words at GIF Sundsvall training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Martin Hellan 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.
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.
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.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Martin Hellan 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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at GIF Sundsvall this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at GIF Sundsvall is running low.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Words at GIF Sundsvall training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Martin Hellan 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.
Successful dribbles: 20. 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at GIF Sundsvall this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; GIF Sundsvall are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
11 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.
Position 15 and 4 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.
Squad31 May 2027
Martin Hellan 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.
Successful dribbles: 14. 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 dugout31 May 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” John Krafth was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the GIF Sundsvall dressing room was either.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Taiki Kagayama trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
The mood at GIF Sundsvall has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around GIF Sundsvall they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Lucas Forsberg 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.
Squad17 May 2027
Martin Hellan 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” John Krafth after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Successful dribbles: 29. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad10 May 2027
Words at GIF Sundsvall training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Martin Hellan 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at GIF Sundsvall this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Something was said to Elias Pihlström and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Squad10 May 2027
8 new faces, and GIF Sundsvall 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.
Lucas Forsberg and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Marked 8.04 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Words at GIF Sundsvall training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Martin Hellan 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.
“I watch every GIF Sundsvall game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Stabaek runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Brann people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ulrik Mathisen 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Brann, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Oscar Aga trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Felix Horn Myhre has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Lucas Forsberg 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.
GIF Sundsvall asked and Djurgarden said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Amar Diagne was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. GIF Sundsvall will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Malte Hallin signs something — a contract at GIF Sundsvall or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“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 Brann, and it is not being withdrawn.
Niklas Castro has gone, the accounts have $1.4M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
Lillestrom paid $1.4M and Brann took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ulrik Mathisen 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.
Vetle Dragsnes 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.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Brann are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Brann 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.” Brann have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Rasmus Holten will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Brann the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Felix Horn Myhre 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Brann this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Brann, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 54 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Brann heard it as anything else.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ulrik Mathisen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.