Marked for Malte Hallingsjö
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Feb 2028
20 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.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Ola Solbakken 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.
Transfer targets28 Feb 2028
IFK Goteborg asked and Cheltenham Town said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad28 Feb 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Leo Radaković and IFK Goteborg agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Nassef Chourak 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 dugout28 Feb 2028
Tobias Heintz 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Feb 2028
27 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
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Austria Wien is saying, and nobody at IFK Goteborg is enjoying the guessing.
Squad21 Feb 2028
August Erlingmark 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.
Squad21 Feb 2028
Words at IFK Goteborg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ola Solbakken 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.
Boardroom21 Feb 2028
IF Elfsborg will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Robin Book 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.
Transfer targets21 Feb 2028
IFK Goteborg 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.
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
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.
Market21 Feb 2028
The David Kruse story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until David Kruse signs something — a contract at IFK Goteborg or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Feb 2028
Malte Hallingsjö damages knee ligaments — 34 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 34 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Transfer targets14 Feb 2028
IFK Goteborg have gone to Austria Wien 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.
Squad14 Feb 2028
August Erlingmark and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Ola Solbakken 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
IFK Goteborg asked and Al-Hilal said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The dugout14 Feb 2028
David Kruse 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 David Kruse is on it.
Market14 Feb 2028
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Tobias Heintz’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Squad14 Feb 2028
“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 IFK Goteborg will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
The dugout14 Feb 2028
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Ramon Pascal Lundqvist has written the date down.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 Feb 2028
46 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.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Max Fenger 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.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Lauri Laine arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Lauri Laine has, at IFK Goteborg, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad7 Feb 2028
Words at IFK Goteborg training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ola Solbakken 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.
Transfer targets7 Feb 2028
$14.0K was the most the club would pay and Orebro were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Transfer targets7 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.
Transfer targets7 Feb 2028
A loan enquiry to Hammarby: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
The dugout7 Feb 2028
When it matters, Max Fenger 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.
The dugout7 Feb 2028
The manager makes an example of Nassef Chourak
“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.