Marked for Adem Sarajlić
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad8 Mar 2027
A fracture rules Kalle Holmberg out for 116 days
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.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Ahmed Yasin and Orebro agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad8 Mar 2027
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.
Market8 Mar 2027
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Orebro have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Transfer targets8 Mar 2027
Orebro asked and Jagiellonia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market8 Mar 2027
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Erik Svanberg is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market8 Mar 2027
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Marcus Augustinsson 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.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Orebro can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
John Stenberg gets picked when it counts
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Transfer targets8 Feb 2027
The deal with Mjällby is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Market8 Feb 2027
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Orebro have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Transfer targets8 Feb 2027
Orebro asked and Hammarby said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Boardroom8 Feb 2027
Orebro release $1.3M for the manager
The board have put money on the table rather than an encouraging word. What happens to it now is somebody else's problem, and somebody else's job.
Market8 Feb 2027
Kristan Marinković is 19, and Orebro have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
The manager makes an example of Lowe Astvald
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout8 Feb 2027
Adem Sarajlić 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 Feb 2027
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Orebro has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
The dugout25 Jan 2027
“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.
Market25 Jan 2027
The Ahmed Yasin story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ahmed Yasin signs something — a contract at Orebro or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The dugout25 Jan 2027
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Jakub Ojrzyński has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad11 Jan 2027
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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Adem Sarajlić and Orebro agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad11 Jan 2027
The formation has left Aulon Bitiqi behind
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.
The dugout11 Jan 2027
“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 dugout11 Jan 2027
John Stenberg gets picked when it counts
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 dugout11 Jan 2027
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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad14 Dec 2026
28 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Market14 Dec 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Ludwig Berg 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.
Market14 Dec 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Mattias Olsen 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.
Market14 Dec 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Ludwig Svanberg 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.
Market14 Dec 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Mikael Granqvist 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.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
John Stenberg has become a man the manager trusts
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 dugout14 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Lowe Astvald, and the manager let it.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
Adem Sarajlić 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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
“I want to play”: Lowe Astvald speaks
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market16 Nov 2026
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jakub Ojrzyński will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Orebro the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad16 Nov 2026
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Orebro have had the benefit of it.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Jakub Ojrzyński, and the manager let it.
Squad16 Nov 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Buster Runheim commits to Orebro for another 4 years.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Squad16 Nov 2026
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Antonio Yakoub has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.93 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Kalle Holmberg, 33, rolls back the years — 7.83
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.83 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Match7 Nov 2026
Landskrona BoIS made Orebro work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Boardroom9 Nov 2026
Varbergs BoIS will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Aulon Bitiqi 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Words exchanged at Orebro
Hampus Söderström 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.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Oscar Tankovic on a 3‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
“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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
The division's best last weekend was a Orebro man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Antonio Yakoub was the best thing in any of them.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Oct 2026
17 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.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Manasse Kusu goes up and wins it — 7.93
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.93 for the rest of it.
Match3 Oct 2026
Utsikten made Orebro work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 10 combined actions and a mark of 7.02, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Too much change too quickly at Orebro
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
“That is what I want every week. Not the result, the way they went about it.” The manager, after 2‑1, already talking about the next one.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Erik McCue gets it from the manager
“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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Ahmed Yasin moves up the pecking order
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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Manasse Kusu finally opens his account
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Orebro have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match29 Aug 2026
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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
At 35 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 8.30, and nobody on the pitch better.
Boardroom31 Aug 2026
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.
The terraces31 Aug 2026
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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The one goal every signing is asked about until it comes. It has come, and a press-conference question has been retired.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
No hiding place for Alex Rahm
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alex Rahm, and the manager let it.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
4.80 on the card. Some afternoons a footballer looks like a man who has only just been introduced to the game, and this was one of them.