Marked for Malte Ljungkull
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings2 Oct 2028
Santeri Väänänen ran the middle of the pitch — 6.95
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 13 combined actions and a mark of 6.95, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Player ratings2 Oct 2028
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match30 Sep 2028
1‑2 to IF Elfsborg, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Market2 Oct 2028
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Djurgarden, another week without a signature from Filip Manojlović.
The dugout2 Oct 2028
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Squad2 Oct 2028
A place in the month's best eleven for Malte Ljungkull
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Malte Ljungkull has come out of that comparison in the side, and Djurgarden have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
The dugout2 Oct 2028
Nino Žugelj 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 Nino Žugelj is on it.
Squad2 Oct 2028
Jack Tagesson slips down the pecking order
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Jack Tagesson is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Squad2 Oct 2028
The captaincy has been taken off Kristian Strømland Lien. Djurgarden will call it a decision about the team; a dressing room reads it as a verdict on a man.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
The dugout8 May 2028
Nikola Zečević: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Djurgarden have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings8 May 2028
At 37 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 8.16, and nobody on the pitch better.
Player ratings8 May 2028
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad8 May 2028
400 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Squad8 May 2028
Leon Hien in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Djurgarden this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces8 May 2028
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.
Match6 May 2028
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Santeri Väänänen. 1‑0 against Degerfors, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad8 May 2028
A row about effort at Djurgarden
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Youssoupha Mbodji was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout20 Dec 2027
“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.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Martin Frese and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Matias Siltanen 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.
The dugout20 Dec 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 dugout20 Dec 2027
The manager makes an example of Malte Ljungkull
“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.
Market20 Dec 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Patric Åslund’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad1 Nov 2027
Martin Frese 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.
Player ratings1 Nov 2027
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad1 Nov 2027
Words at Djurgarden training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matias Siltanen 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.
Match30 Oct 2027
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Match30 Oct 2027
BK Hacken made Djurgarden work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings1 Nov 2027
Patric Åslund was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.12. 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.
The dugout1 Nov 2027
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 dugout1 Nov 2027
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Emil Forsberg on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Loan watch1 Nov 2027
The goals keep arriving from Santeri Väänänen’s exile
9 goals in 19 games at SJK — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Djurgarden updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match23 Oct 2027
8 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Player ratings25 Oct 2027
A performance of 8.18 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
The dugout25 Oct 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.
Match23 Oct 2027
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout25 Oct 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Malte Ljungkull, and the manager let it.
The dugout25 Oct 2027
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Emil Forsberg after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Player ratings25 Oct 2027
Shots: 8, not one of them in. A centre forward is paid for one thing, and on this evidence he has forgotten which thing it is.
Looking ahead25 Oct 2027
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against BK Hacken in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Market25 Oct 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Patric Åslund’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.73, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market9 Aug 2027
Only the photograph left for Christ Wawa
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Christ Wawa will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around BK Hacken the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
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 7.84 for the rest of it.
The dugout9 Aug 2027
Harry Hilvenius: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” BK Hacken have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Transfer targets9 Aug 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Falkenberg have kept their man, and BK Hacken go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market9 Aug 2027
Djurgarden pay $70.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Boardroom9 Aug 2027
Falkenberg will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Hampus Källström has pre-agreed a move to BK Hacken, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
The terraces9 Aug 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Denil Castillo 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad9 Aug 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Daniel Stensson
27 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Djurgarden lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match4 Aug 2027
A 1‑0 win over IF Elfsborg, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Squad9 Aug 2027
7 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
At 35 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 7.82, and nobody on the pitch better.
Transfer targets9 Aug 2027
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Djurgarden have done the hard part with Västerås SK, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Squad9 Aug 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Nino Žugelj and Djurgarden agree another 4 years.
Transfer targets9 Aug 2027
Djurgarden asked and Kalmar FF said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Loan watch9 Aug 2027
“I watch every Djurgarden game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Varbergs BoIS runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Player ratings9 Aug 2027
Ninety minutes of Patric Åslund at his very best
Marked 8.14. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Djurgarden.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market14 Dec 2026
Johan Hammar has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around BK Hacken they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of David Seger
“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 dugout14 Dec 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.