Marked for Oliver Månsson
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Feb 2028
18 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. IFK Goteborg lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Transfer targets28 Feb 2028
Everything agreed with Rosenborg, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Transfer targets28 Feb 2028
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Riyad Idrissi 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.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Words at IFK Goteborg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sam Larsson 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.
The dugout28 Feb 2028
When it matters, Axel Kouamé plays
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.
Market28 Feb 2028
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Elis Bishesari signs something — a contract at IFK Goteborg or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The dugout28 Feb 2028
The manager makes Jonas Bager a promise
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at IFK Goteborg. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Squad28 Feb 2028
A new face in his position and a shirt he thought he owned suddenly up for discussion. IFK Goteborg have promised nothing, which is what clubs promise at this stage.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Feb 2028
26 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. IFK Goteborg lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Transfer targets21 Feb 2028
IFK Goteborg have gone to Rosenborg 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.
Transfer targets21 Feb 2028
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad21 Feb 2028
Filip Ottosson 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.
Squad21 Feb 2028
IFK Goteborg are still strangers to each other
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The dugout21 Feb 2028
Elis Bishesari has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at IFK Goteborg 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.
Squad21 Feb 2028
No place for Nikola Zečević in the new shape
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation IFK Goteborg are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Market21 Feb 2028
No place for Lars Sætra in the plan
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Lars Sætra has his answer from IFK Goteborg; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The dugout21 Feb 2028
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Alexander Jallow trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Feb 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Oliver Månsson
35 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. IFK Goteborg lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Tobias Heintz 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.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Filip Ottosson 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.
Transfer targets14 Feb 2028
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Boardroom14 Feb 2028
Hammarby will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Carl Gustafsson has pre-agreed a move to IFK Goteborg, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
The dugout14 Feb 2028
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 Alexander Jallow is on it.
The dugout14 Feb 2028
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Alexander Jallow trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market14 Feb 2028
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. IFK Goteborg know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Squad14 Feb 2028
A season on the outside for Sverre Sandal
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at IFK Goteborg has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.