You have probably read it before, that Jesper Jansson dislikes the constant “silly season talk” that surrounds today’s football. Hammarby’s sports director believes that during large parts of the year there are rumors circulating and calls for reinforcements by supporters and various thinkers. That the focus all too often ends up on the clubs seeking solutions via signings from outside.
The activity in the transfer market and whether a club invests in a big name or succeeds in landing a hyped talent often determines what the external pressure looks like. Jansson has undoubtedly felt that this winter.
– That talk just increases all the time and then it gets a little stressful externally and then it affects internally and then you have to make some decisions after that. All talk and gossip affects the club, the coaching staff and the players’ group, says the sporting director.
A number of established players have left Hammarby ahead of the season. Richard Magyar, Darijan Bojanic, Mohanad Jeahze, Simon Sandberg, Gustav Ludwigson, Jeppe Andersen, David Concha and Veton Berisha have all said goodbye to green and white.
At the same time, not as many players have been recruited. Or how should you actually look at it? Bajen has invested a lot of money in bets on Viktor Djukanovic, Adi Nalic, August Mikkelsen and Tesfaldet Tekie, but they also have a couple of “new” names who played fully or partially with the farm team HTFF in Division 1 last year.
That young players such as Nathaniel Adjei, Alper Demirol, Fredrik Hammar, Ibrahima Breze Fofana, Moustapha Amadou Sabo, Jusef Erabi, Saidou Alioum, Montader Madjed, Casper Eklund, Ludvig Svanberg and Markus Karlsson are knocking on the door of Hammarby’s Allsvenskan starting eleven to varying extents has not received the same attention as some competitors’ signings. And Jesper Jansson admits that it is a challenge for the club to get it right in how to, for example, communicate around that type of player in order to create an external and internal belief that the investment is right.
– It has been a bit difficult to communicate about it. Once we took over HTFF, it was a damn sensitive direction. We couldn’t even communicate it on our website because it is a different association.
Do you need to get better at hyping your “internal” recruitments?
– Definitely. I think so. But it is also a balancing act. How much should we hype it? Because it’s not the hype that does it, it’s the quality.
– But we probably have to get better at it. It is even the case that we have those discussions internally. I can get the question from my own communications department: “Has he got an A-team contract now?”. No, we have a Hammarby contract.
Jansson further exemplifies:
– “Does Casper (Eklund) have an A team contract now?”. No, he’s in training camp. “But where will he play?”. We don’t know that. He will play where he places. It’s hard to say: “That’s an A-team player”.
Bajen’s sporting director believes that there is a clear difference between the green and whites and other clubs in view of the HTFF structure.
– The question would have been significantly more relevant if it concerned Norrköping, Djurgården or AIK. “He gets promoted, he gets an A-team contract”. Yes, but where will he play? It is more relevant there, there should be more concern about it. “This young guy that AIK promoted, where is he going to get game time?”. They don’t have an U21 team and they don’t have an HTFF. There the question is more relevant.
– For us it is different. When others go to training camp, they bring juniors with them. Our juniors have been playing Division 1 football in the HTFF and we are the ones in control of that club. We look at it as having one big squad.
As I said, Jansson admits that for Hammarby there is a balance to be made regarding how young new acquisitions who are intended to be top players in the Allsvenskan should be presented and handled in terms of communication.
– Look at players like (Saidou) Alioum, (Ibrahima Breze) Fofana, Montader (Madjed), Casper (Eklund) and Kingsley (Gyamfi). We don’t communicate that they are new Hammarby players, but we write that they are HTFF players, as well. Even though they are Hammarby players.
In your squad puzzle for this year, are some of the players from last year’s HTFF a bit of a new acquisition for your A team?
– And and. Absolutely.
– One example is Montader. When he arrived last summer, we judged that he needed his games in Division 1 after not playing in Varberg. What should we do now then (when he challenges for A-team games)? Shall we go big? “Here’s a new player!”, well, he’s not new. He has been here since last summer and scored a lot of goals.
Jansson continues:
– Shall we hype it up then? That we have bought one of Sweden’s greatest talents. He’s special, but he’s slipped under the radar in a damn good way. But if you think about the hype, we would: “Boom” (beat the big drum when he finished).
– If we had done that and said that it is a super player, then the question would have been: “Why the hell should he play in HTFF then?”. Then people would have wanted to see him in the A team. We judged that it would be best for his development to play in HTFF.
The sporting director concludes his reasoning:
– Either you can think that we have found the right thing and screw up the media hype a bit and hope that it will show in the long run (that Hammarby is making the right choice). There are many who have followed that path, such as Mayckel Lahdo, Williot Swedberg, Aimar Sher and Aziz Ouattara. Around someone like Aziz, it was all of a sudden: “Ouch!”, then he played during the autumn and then he was sold for 25 million.
– It was like: “Where the hell did he come from?”. No one knew that he had played a year in HTFF.
You hope that when the idea really takes hold, it will also enter people’s consciousness?
– Yes exactly.
Jansson believes that several of the already mentioned names can have their breakthrough this year and contribute in the Allsvenskan.
– I think a lot is a matter of attitude. That you dare to believe in it.
He returns to the discussion of the reactions and expectations that different types of signings create:
– There will be bigger headlines if you pick up a Jimmy Durmaz than if you take a player from Montenegro (Viktor Djukanovic) who people generally know nothing about. Sometimes that hype can be worth a hell of a lot. Sometimes it can hit you right in the face.
– It’s a trade-off: how much should we (hype)? For the sake of the players too. Should you put that pressure by hype? Or should you let the players “walk the talk”?
One aspect that Hammarby needs to take into account when deciding on matches for its young talents is that the foreign players cannot play for both the A team and HTFF. Before the transfer window closes, they need to decide which of the two teams those players will belong to.
– It’s bloody funny. I’ve been to (the union) about it. It’s actually a bit discriminatory.
Is it to benefit Swedish players?
– No I do not think so. I think the rule exists out of some fear of Fifa and Uefa. But they haven’t really checked it out there. There are arrangements like this in other countries. I haven’t really gotten a good answer.
– But what you say, that you want to develop Swedish players for the Swedish national team and so on, would be a very good argument. I would rather buy that argument.
When do you decide on the foreign players?
– We will generally decide around the end of March. Then we have to sit and puzzle. What is best for Sabo? How close is he in Marti’s (Cifuentes, coach) thoughts? What is the probability that he will be a player who jumps in for five minutes? We get to feel that.
Several of the players who left Hammarby this winter the club was prepared to get rid of, for example Darijan Bojanic, Jeppe Andersen and Mohanad Jeahze. Gustav Ludwigson had been hoped to be retained, but there Ulsan Hyundai used a clause in the forward’s contract.
As for right-back Simon Sandberg, who is now ready for BK Häcken, Bajen would have preferred to extend him. But the parties did not agree on the financial terms of a new agreement.
Basically, Jesper Jansson wants there to be room for that type of player in the squad, reliable players who have been at the club for several years.
– He did great in Hammarby. As a club, we may sometimes be a bit overambitious. Good is good, like. A lot of people were mad at me when I extended with (Mats) Solheim a few years ago. “We must have better!”. But then he ended up playing his 26 games, sort of.
– We want to find those supporting players who just chew on too. In the long run, we hope to be able to produce that via HTFF as well. Every single case cannot be a sales case.
Jansson continues:
– We must be able to produce those “hammer villages”, but it is not so easy in today’s football. Not least in Stockholm football. Everyone wants to move on all the time. We can say: “Maybe you should play another year in HTFF?”. Then you can get the answer: “No, I want to play in the super league”. But we have a system that maintains a super-etana level and if you do well there then…
– Players like Ludvig Svanberg and Fredrik Hammar will become Allsvenskan players with a little endurance.
The fact that Jansson, primarily in collaboration with chief scout Mikael Hjelmberg, recruits players for two teams, both the A team and HTFF, means a greater workload. But he doesn’t want to complain about that.
– It is extremely exciting. There you can find little gold nuggets in a completely different way. I like that. Bringing in a (Gustav) Ludwigson where you first meet a little resistance, or a Darijan (Bojanic) where you are told that he is too bad defensively.
– Actually, it doesn’t really tickle that damn much to take a Veton Berisha. Where you know exactly what you are getting. It tickles more to find something that is: “Mm, this could hit”.
In December last year, Jansson signed a new contract with the club and now he has a permanent contract instead of a limited-time contract. However, he makes no secret of the fact that the work as sports director in Hammarby is tiring.
He also explains that he thought about whether he could transfer the strategy he works from as sports director in football to a role outside of it.
– I have only worked in football. How would my strategy work in a completely different industry?
Do you feel like playing football sometimes?
– Yes, sometimes I do. Absolutely. In my role, there are many people who must have something of one all the time. Even if it’s not directly from me.
– It feels like everyone wants something. It could be an answer to that, more money there, you want information there. It comes from all sides and edges all the time.
Now that you’ve signed a permanent contract, how far ahead do you see it?
– I see everything from three months to 30 years. Roughly so, says Jansson and laughs.
He explains that thoughts about the future and the energy at work “go in waves”.
– When you can’t play anymore, few are lucky enough to be able to work with their hobby anyway. At the same time, it is probably harder work than many people think.
– In December, all leaders, coaches and players are off. Then they come back tanned and rested. Then I’m pale and fat. And, well… in some ways, I just chewed on during that period. Then the stub is shorter, as well. It’s not really healthy.
Jansson continues:
– Then you have to look at yourself and why you end up there, that you can’t take time off. You have to look at it and see if you can do something about it so that you can take a week off without feeling like everything is falling apart.
Can you then? Are there such gaps?
– I haven’t really got around to it.
– It has a bit to do with the environment you work in and the club you are in. We have grown like hell in all parameters.
He exemplifies:
– We could have given a damn about starting an HTFF project. Then I would have had significantly less work. I could have made it easier for myself, as well.
But you still end up thinking it’s a lot of fun, don’t you?
– Yes, well… sometimes it’s fun, says Jansson and laughs again.
– It’s always fun to build something, but it’s a bit hard to start rebuilding. You never quite finish, he concludes.
FOOTNOTE: The interview was conducted on February 1, during Hammarby’s training camp in Marbella, Spain.
