Friday had almost become the first Saturday in December when it became clear that Sweden’s women’s soccer team will not play in the Olympics this summer. It is in line with the fact that the men’s national team completed their hat trick in misses during the autumn. There will be no EC.
The men will have a new national team captain. Maybe the ladies should have it too.
But those are not the big questions for Swedish football. It is also hardly how (or even if) the pyrotechnics in the Men’s All-Svenskan are to be extinguished or that some supporters take care to stop VAR.
The biggest problem is that Swedish football right now has historically found it difficult to get elite and broad, seniors and children, into the same movement and get all parts to develop there.
I increasingly doubt that it will work. No matter how much you want and no matter how good the idea is.
This week, the Social Democrats came out with a self-critical report in which the party’s immigration policy was seen. According to the investigators, the failure was due to the fear of being associated with the Sweden Democrats.
Without being someone Tomas Ramberg I think that for a long time there was a general fear of pointing out any problems that had to do with immigration. So a dissatisfaction grew, not least towards media such as DN, in the silence.
In football there is a similar problem.
There is an expectation that new stars will emerge from a talent business where the requirements have been extremely unclear.
There, the correct and dominant opinion in the debate for several decades has been different versions of:
This is how you stop elite investment among children.
The result of this failed benevolence has been incitement by stealth. Selections in the cloud. Elimination far down in the ages that preferably no one should notice.
A kind of hush-hush business which are not really driven by any evil intentions at all but can still have very sad consequences. This is something Aftonbladet’s Patrik Brenning patiently writes about.
At the same time, various football associations have contracts with the elimination of tables, there are matches with fewer players and encouragement to continue with several sports.
Above all this, there has long been an expectation that new stars will emerge from a talent business where the requirements have been extremely unclear. In recent years, Swedish talents have found it increasingly difficult to get playing time abroad.
How is Sweden going to get players who make the A national team better?
How will Sweden get children and young people to want to play long(r)e?
These questions must be exactly as important for Swedish football. But it is impossible for an organization, a football association, to run the issues as well. I have no clear suggestions on how Swedish football should be divided, just can’t see it being held together.
Sure, there are the Women’s Elite Soccer and the Men’s Swedish Elite Soccer (Sef) organizations. Sef is now working more and more to develop and improve the academies.
In commercialized elite clubs there is also a width that goes down to boys who barely know where to score goals. Photo: Thomas Karlsson
But the talent training takes place in associations that suffer from the same problems as the Swedish Football Association. At the top is an extremely commercialized elite business. Big clubs devour smaller associations in order to have farm teams there, teams that will produce more good and marketable players for the main club.
In the same commercialized elite clubs there is also a width that goes down to boys who barely know where to score.
In between there are clear academies and more hidden action where leaders direct matches against teams in other age groups. Some teams have most of their matches outside of the confederation’s regular series system.
And what the biggest clubs do, the smaller ones want to emulate.
When will the requirements picture come in? What should the requirements look like?
The failed benevolence has brought Swedish youth football to a situation where it:
On the one hand, elite betting is considered ugly.
On the other hand, it is considered mean to only conduct broadside operations.
This approach has primarily taken root in Stockholm. Andrea Möllerberg has worked at the district’s association, now she has switched to the Swedish Football Association while this dual approach is spreading in the country.
At the same time, the questions are growing:
When will the requirements picture come in? What should the requirements look like?
Today, 10-year-olds are secretly required to be good enough to place in a group, but at the top, the performance requirements are no greater than that a national team captain can have two failures and still be allowed to continue.
To turn that right, the new federal leadership should start by addressing this fresh issue:
What will happen to the women’s national team captain Peter Gerhardsson?
It is not a fiasco that Sweden misses out OS. Europe only has three seats, one is given to host France. But it is a historic failure of this summer’s WC third and the current number one in the world ranking.
Swedish Football Association chairman Fredtik Reinfeldt and general secretary Andrea Möllerberg, Photo: Joel Marklund/Bildbyrån
In the summer of 2024, a global women’s soccer championship will be played for the first time without Swedish participation.
The worst thing is if this qualification miss is handled as laxly as the actions of the previous management.
It provides a historic Swedish opportunity. There is a chance for a restart without stress, renovation without race risk. If the new union leadership with chairman Fredrik Reinfeldt and general secretary Andrea Möllerberg at the head wants.
The worst thing is about this qualifier is handled as laxly as the previous management’s actions when Janne Andersson had the first of what would become three straight failures as national team captain with the men’s national team.
After the 2022 World Cup miss, then general secretary Håkan Sjöstrand waved away all questions about Janne Andersson’s future. Apparently it was stupid to even ask them. Andersson would get a lifetime contract if Sjöstrand got to decide.
I’m not saying that Peter Gerhardsson should be fired as national team captain. I am not saying that it is a given that he will keep his job.
Just saying that he should not continue without the union management first addressing the issue properly.
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2023-12-02 05:07:47
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