From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market31 Aug 2026
Arbnor Mucolli has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around IFK Goteborg they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Boardroom31 Aug 2026
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Arbnor Mucolli has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 16 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
“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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad31 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and IFK Goteborg 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.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
Melwin Hedman dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Isak Svanberg was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the IFK Goteborg dressing room was either.
Looking ahead31 Aug 2026
IFK Goteborg take on the side everybody is chasing
Halmstad arrive as leaders. A side at the top is beaten roughly once a month, and the club that does it gets a week it remembers for a year.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 35. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match19 Aug 2026
A 3‑2 win over Hammarby, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Match19 Aug 2026
Nino Žugelj wins it after the whistle should have gone
103 minutes played. Nino Žugelj found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Hammarby went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A brace, and Nino Žugelj takes the afternoon — 9.11
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Nino Žugelj provided it, and the 9.11 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
IFK Goteborg offered $1.6M; Hammarby said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Al Ain keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and August Erlingmark was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match22 Aug 2026
1‑2 to AIK, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 39. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match12 Aug 2026
A 1‑0 win over Orebro, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Match12 Aug 2026
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. IFK Goteborg scored in the 121th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Market17 Aug 2026
Gefle come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and IFK Goteborg did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Barracas Central wanted more than $5.5M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
Supporters turn on the $3.3M sale of Max Fenger
He is going to AIK, the club has $3.3M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Market17 Aug 2026
AIK pay $3.3M, 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.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
$1.6M on the table at Hammarby. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
Deadline passes with 1 signed and 6 gone
That is the business done at IFK Goteborg until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match8 Aug 2026
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 5‑0 against Atvidaberg, and it could have been more.
Market10 Aug 2026
Terms done: Canadá is going
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Odd waiting with a shirt. Nobody at IFK Goteborg is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market10 Aug 2026
Hammarby come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and IFK Goteborg did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad10 Aug 2026
The match ball belongs to Max Fenger, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
$2.9M on the table at Hammarby. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
$510.0K 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” David Kruse and IFK Goteborg agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Max Fenger and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
$150.0K was the most the club would pay and Hammarby 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
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 targets3 Aug 2026
IFK Goteborg have gone to Barracas Central 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Elis Bishesari commits to IFK Goteborg for another 5 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
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.
Market3 Aug 2026
Eyes on Canadá again
The phone has started ringing about Canadá again, and this time the name on the line is Odd. IFK Goteborg are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad3 Aug 2026
August Erlingmark 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Market3 Aug 2026
The clock runs on Elis Bishesari's contract
61 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Marked 7.92 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, IFK Goteborg had the best player on the pitch.