80 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. IF Elfsborg lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. IF Elfsborg have paid $2.5M for Emmanuel Ekong, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Olimpia is saying, and nobody at IF Elfsborg is enjoying the guessing.
Rasmus Wikström 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.
IF Elfsborg asked and IFK Norrkoping said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Emmanuel Ekong was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $2.5M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
In brief
SquadIF Elfsborg are still strangers to each other
88 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. IF Elfsborg lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have shaken hands with Malmo FF; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Malmo FF have kept their man, and IF Elfsborg go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
$1.4M was the most the club would pay and Malmo FF 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.
The phone has started ringing about Per Frick again, and this time the name on the line is IFK Norrkoping. IF Elfsborg are listening politely and promising nothing.
$220.0K on the table at Helsingborg. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IF Elfsborg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Malmo FF paid $240.0K and IF Elfsborg 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Thomas Isherwood was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The words a physio says slowly. 95 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 targets8 Feb 2027
$250.0K settles it between the clubs for Christ Wawa
BK Hacken have accepted the money. What IF Elfsborg do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
$1.4M on the table at Malmo FF. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The offer went to Malmo FF this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Add another name to the list: Mjondalen have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Leo Östman. The answer from IF Elfsborg has not changed — yet.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Carl 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Thomas Isherwood was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
103 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. IF Elfsborg lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Rasmus Wikström 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.
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.
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at IF Elfsborg would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
110 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. IF Elfsborg lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Rasmus Wikström 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.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. IF Elfsborg know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
SquadThe training reports on Jon Esenga are not good
118 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. IF Elfsborg lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IF Elfsborg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The phone has started ringing about Leo Östman again, and this time the name on the line is AlbinoLeffe. IF Elfsborg are listening politely and promising nothing.
Nobody at IF Elfsborg 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 dugoutRobin Book asks for a word with the manager
24Edition
The IF Elfsborg Post
11 Jan 2027
From our football correspondentSteady
Squad11 Jan 2027
Mats Lillebo damages knee ligaments — 125 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 125 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Oscar 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Linus 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. IF Elfsborg know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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 Per Frick has written the date down.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. IF Elfsborg will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
“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; IF Elfsborg are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Rasmus Wikström 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Thomas Isherwood was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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 Theo Sander is on it.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. IF Elfsborg will quote 15 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Taylor Silverholt trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. IF Elfsborg know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” IF Elfsborg have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. IF Elfsborg know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
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 Per Frick has written the date down.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Ari Sigurpálsson’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. IF Elfsborg know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Rasmus Wikström 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.
Nobody at IF Elfsborg 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. IF Elfsborg know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” IF Elfsborg have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Rasmus Wikström 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at IF Elfsborg is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IF Elfsborg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 Rasmus Wikström is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. IF Elfsborg know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at IF Elfsborg, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Ari Sigurpálsson plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
Done, and with games to spare. Next season has floodlit nights against clubs from other countries in it, and the accounts have a line they did not have last year.
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 IF Elfsborg have had the benefit of it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. IF Elfsborg know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IF Elfsborg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Gustav Guidetti 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.
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 Theo Sander is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Taylor Silverholt trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. IF Elfsborg know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Eivind Willumsen 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Niklas Hult is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at IF Elfsborg, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Júlíus Magnússon scored, was marked 7.68, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at IF Elfsborg is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IF Elfsborg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Successful dribbles: 19. 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.
“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 dugout26 Oct 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.” Carl Larsson, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 9 combined actions and a mark of 7.52, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Squad19 Oct 2026
8 new faces, and IF Elfsborg 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.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Something was said to Lucas Hägg Johansson and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
At 21 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Sebastian Holmén and IF Elfsborg agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and IF Elfsborg know it.
Rasmus Wikström 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Sebastian Tankovic 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.
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 Theo Sander is on it.
Two goals and a mark of 9.57 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Dealt with internally, which is the phrase a club uses when it would rather nobody asked twice. He will be fined, he will apologise, and he will play on Saturday.
Rasmus Wikström 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Frederik Ihler 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.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 3 times before the twentieth minute. Atvidaberg tried to reorganise, IF Elfsborg did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Lucas Hägg Johansson will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around IF Elfsborg the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IF Elfsborg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at IF Elfsborg 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 dugout28 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Carl Larsson was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the IF Elfsborg dressing room was either.
7.80, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Sebastian Holmén 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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Arbër Zeneli was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.29. 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.
8 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.
At 20 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.
Eivind Willumsen 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.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and IF Elfsborg will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
The 88th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Frederik Ihler decided nobody was going anywhere. Hammarby had no time left to answer.
Rasmus Wikström 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.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at IF Elfsborg, another week without a signature from Arbër Zeneli.
Successful dribbles: 16. 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.
6 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Lucas Hägg Johansson will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around IF Elfsborg the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IF Elfsborg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.06 — 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.
Successful dribbles: 17. 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 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.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Sporting CP is saying, and nobody at IF Elfsborg is enjoying the guessing.
$270.0K was the most the club would pay and Kalmar FF 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Olimpia have kept their man, and IF Elfsborg go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. IF Elfsborg will try again when the window opens; Djurgarden may not be selling by then.
The goal that put IFK Norrkoping ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when IF Elfsborg equalised, 4 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
3 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
The offer from SJK for Leo Östman was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
IF Elfsborg close the window on a squad of their own making
19 in and 4 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $920.0K has been paid because Anderson Julio is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
The deal with Djurgarden 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.
$260.0K on the table at Kalmar FF. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Rasmus Wikström 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.
Malmo FF paid $370.0K and IF Elfsborg took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
IF Elfsborg and FC Dallas have settled on $920.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
The deal with Hammarby 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Rasmus Wikström and IF Elfsborg agree another 3 years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IF Elfsborg this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
IF Elfsborg 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Adam Quaison 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Erik Hiljemark 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Ludwig Lindelof 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.
310 appearances across 16 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at IF Elfsborg is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
IF Elfsborg have gone to FC Dallas 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.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Lucas Hägg Johansson has agreed terms with IFK Goteborg for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Sebastian Holmén and IF Elfsborg agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Penarol have kept their man, and IF Elfsborg go back to a list with one name crossed off it.