The first half of Malmö FF, autumn 2018, Romain Gall delivered at a high level. In 2019, the playing time became smaller and smaller. Then the loan carousel began.
This summer, the American returned from lending to Örebro, but there has been no re-ignition in MFF. Gall is not even in Jon Dahl Tomasson’s match squads. Sports director Daniel Andersson remembers that the recruitment at first felt “very right”.
– The first time he was really good and there was a lot of interest. We might even have been able to sell him after the first half of the year. But then he fell out of the team and came into a vicious circle. The quality is there, but it is perhaps such a player who would have needed more confidence and had to play all the time, says Andersson.
“Victim of a system change”
That’s part of the explanation. Another is that the roles in the team have changed over time.
– He fell victim to a system change where we went over to 3-5-2 that did not suit him in the same way. He was recruited as an outside forward.
Romain Gall is really a good enough football player to at least take a place in your match squads from time to time, right? How can this be?
– It is the coach who sets it and he has players that he chooses before, which he has come further with. There are players that Jon prefers in the position he has relationships with, and then he chooses it instead of mixing in Romain. Then it’s really boring for Romain but all credit to him, he rubs on. There is never anything negative. He is training even though he knows he will probably not be in any squad.
It must be psychologically stressful. How do you make sure that players feel good in such situations?
– It is clear that we are talking to the players about the situation. We also have a sports psychologist here so I hope we do what we can for them. It is not always easy to pick up signals but we think we are here for them.
