Stockholm team AIK won the League this year, last time they wonwas in 1998. Martin Mutumba and other AIK players accounted for their words. Mutumba In both cases, what he said and he has written. 

When Martin Mutumba Shirt ripped off by excited fans bared a tattoo freshly prepared. "AIK GOLD 2LAX9" (AIK GOLD 2009) was written in black writing on the chest. 

- I did it two days ago. Clear that it is genuine, you can not just have a fake....

UEFA boss Platini has some investigating to do

Just now, UEFA are investigating several matches in the Champions League and UEFA Cup for signs of match fixing. The story goes that several teams from Eastern Europe would rather lose their matches by a big score and earn big money than lose fairly and not earn a penny. It's quite understandable...

The group stages of the Champions League and the Europa League started last week without too much of a fuss. Perhaps the most controversial element was the use of five on-field officials in the Europa League. This experiment is said to be the brainchild of UEFA President Michel Platini, favouring the extra officials over the use of video replays, which, in his opinion, create lengthy delays in the game. The first night of the experiment must have been a...

Of the summer's big spenders it was Manchester City in the English Premier League who was tested first. A score of 4-2 against Arsenal shows that Manchester's "other team" will be there or thereabouts come the end of the season. They may not reach the summit this season but are bound for their best season in the Premier League. In Spain, Real Madrid had no problem with bottom-placed Espanyol, winning 3-0 away but will have to wait several weeks for a real...

The Women's Euros are coming to a close. First to reach the finals was England who won their semi-final against the Netherlands 2-1 after extra time. Beforehand, the match was deemed to be an easy game for England, but the Netherlands fought to the end. Their equalizer came just three minutes after England's 1-0 and they were only four minutes from a penalty shoot out when England's Jill Scott headed the winning goal after watching th...

The women's Euros group stage will be completed tonight with the Russia-Italy and Sweden-England ties in Group C while Groups A and B were decided this weekend. Undefeated Germany made no mistake in their final group match, beating Iceland 1-0. Norway and France managed a draw which ensured they both advanced to the quarterfinals. France qualified with their second place behind Germany wit...

The UEFA Women's Euros started last night with two matches, one of them featuring hosts, Finland, against near-neighbours Denmark. Despite dominating most of the first half, Denmark fell behind to the only goal of the match when Finland's Saari scored just after the break in front of 16,324 spectators at the Olympic Stadium, a record for women's international football in Finland. The tournament's opening match was won by the Netherlands over fellow tournament...

I'm away for a week and guess what happens during that time - nothing! OK, the European leagues are starting and in the rest of the world they are coming to the halfway stage or nearing their conclusion. But nothing I can really get my teeth into.

The new FIFA rankings were released last week with nearly the entire top twenty unchanged with only Italy and Germany swapping places. The USA (12) missed out on their chance of making the top ten after their...

I can't carry on with this football blog without mentioning the great Sir Bobby Robson, who passed away last Friday at the age of 76. His reputation stretched far into the world of football with clubs in England, Holland, Spain and Portugal receiving the benefit of his expertise. In England, he took the national team further than anyone else bar Sir Alf Ramsey in 1966 and he will always be the standard to which all future England managers will be compared. Personally, I think...

The recent bombings in Indonesia robbed the country of one its biggest footballing attractions last week as Manchester United called off the Indonesian leg of their Far East tour. United were scheduled to meet an Indonesian Super League XI tonight but were greeted on their arrival to Kuala Lumpur with the news that their hotel had been bombed. After seeking advice from the British Foreign Offic...

Is there anything going on in the football close season in Europe? A quick scan of the FIFA and UEFA websites reveals very little. One tournament I must draw attention to is the women's U19 Euros, which start tonight in Belarus. Competing nations are England, France, Germany, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and hosts Belarus.

Some nations in the rest of the world are still playing...

The next major international tournament coming up is The Women's Euro 2009 in Finland. Held the last week in August and the first ten days of September, the finals will now be competed by 12 nations, an increase of 4 nations compared with previous tournaments. The organizers are hoping this will be the biggest ever Women's Euros with hopefully an average attendance of over 10,000. One thing is certain however; this will be the biggest football event ever held in...

A match between Germany and England can only finish in one way, or? At least it wasn't penalties that decided the U21 Championship final to Germany's favour. England broke that particular spook in the semifinal against Sweden. After a heartbreaking loss 13-12 after penalties against Holland last time round, England finally laid those ghosts to rest as well as manager Stuart Pearce's when...

How do you write a blog about the events of the last week? After breaking one record and equalling another, Spain, was bowled out of the Confederations Cup when the USA gave all to take them to the final. In the other semifinal, only a late goal from Brazil could keep South Africa out of it. How close we were to an SA-USA final! Now that would have been something! In the end, quality beat boldness in at least one of the matches, so we all sat in front of our sets...

 

The group stage of the Under 21 Championship comes to a head during the next two days with England the only nation sure of advancement. In group B tonight, Germany will take on England needing only one point to join the English and Spain will have to win against Finland while England win over Germany in order to go through. Group A is still more even, with all four nations still able to reach th...

 

It's been a busy time over on my ice-hockey blog, what with the World Championships and the Stanley Cup in North America. Now the turn has come to football with the dress rehearsals for next year's World Cup, the Confederations Cup, starting yesterday in South Africa and the UEFA U21 Championships starting this evening in my adopted country, Sweden.

For those not aware, the FIFA Confederations Cup is a tournament held by the hosts of the coming World Cup to fine-tune and test their...

This weekend we were exhibiting at FotballExpo in Oslo. Sorry to say, the show was not exactly what we expected. Our products and marketing is meant for an audience from Municipalities and companies specialized in our type of equipment (Soccer, Icehockey and/or Athletics). Sorry to say the main part of all visitors were families. We met some nice parents and cute kids, but maybe not exactly what we were aiming for!

Saturday night. Swedish National Day. FIFA Qualification game in soccer Sweden-Denmark! I am in Norway, on a dinner, when the game starts. Next to me at the table I have ...

This weekend has seen a number of World Cup qualifiers and the first countries from Europe and Asia to make it to South Africa in 2010. The first to qualify were a trio from the Asia groupings; Japan, South Korea and Australia.

First out was Japan after a hard fought 1-0 victory against Uzbekistan to give them a place in the finals for the fourth time in succession. South Korea secured a place in their seventh successive finals after beating the United Arab Emirates 2-0 in Dubai. Australia made it through without conceding a single goal in their six qualifiers. A 0-0 draw against...

You are very welcome to meet me and Dennis Österberg at FotballExpo 2009 in Oslo June 5th to 7th.
We will show our Eco soccer goal and other Nordic products in our stand.
Inspite that we will be in Norway (on Swedens National Day June 6th), we will of course cheer bigtime for our Swedish soccerheroes as they meet Denmark in a FIFA World Cup qualification game the same day!

With the season winding down in most countries of the northern hemisphere, I thought I'd have a look at the average attendances in the major European leagues. The reason I looked into this really is because I've been watching a few games in Italy's Serie A on television and always been astounded how empty the arenas appear to be. I was surprised to find out that the largest average attendance was in Germany's Bundesliga despite them not enjoying the dominance in Europe shown by England, Italy and Spain. France's top flight Division One finished last of the five leagues in my unscientific...

Were there two teams on the pitch in Rome last night? I saw only one, one at a time that is. For the first ten minutes, it was Manchester United, then, after they scored the first goal, it was Barcelona all the way. The goal may well have come against the run of play but Barcelona more than made up for it later. I've scoured the...

Last week, England launched their bid for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups in the Bobby Moore room at Wembley, thankfully without uttering a word about "football's coming home". At the deadline last March, a total of nine countries had entered a bid to FIFA for 2018 and 2022 and a further two for solely 2022. This is the first time countries have been allowed to bid for consecutive tournaments and those who are unsuccessful with their 2018 bid will go into the hat for 2022. The countries bidding for both 2018 and 2022 are Australia, England, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Russia, USA and joint bids...

Shakhtar Donetsk took the Ukraine's first European success since independence in 1991 last night after an extra time goal against Werder Bremen from Germany. For being a Ukraine against Germany European battle, it was remarkable that all the goals were scored by Brazilians! Note that this was not a game of my liking. After a bright attacking start, the game fell into a passing fest and with the game evenly poised at 1-1 there were several instances when the attacking team passed the ball from the opposing team's penalty area back to their own goalkeeper! The fear of losing seemed greater...

Manchester United secured their gold medals on Saturday with a low-key 0-0 game against Arsenal. It was just the one point that was needed to win the championship and that was what they got, even if it came close during the final minutes. Now they're champions of England for the eighteenth time, equalling Liverpool's record, the eleventh league win under manager Sir Alec Ferguson and the third in a row. Fellow Champions League finalists Barcelona, plus Italy's Inter also became champions on Saturday, albeit without kicking a ball, as Villarreal took all the points off Real Madrid as did...

Champions League finalists, Barcelona and Manchester United, and Italy's Inter all look to be closing in on their respective titles. Barcelona and Inter both had the chance to lift their titles this weekend but both had to come away from their games with one point. Celebrations will have to be put on hold another week. Barcelona was only seconds away from winning their match at Camp Nou when Villareal equalized. A late goal earlier this week against Chelsea put Barcelona into the Champions League final, now it meant they will have to wait a week for the title. In England, Manchester United...

What a result! It wasn't exactly what I predicted. Who would have predicted that finish to the CL semi-final between Chelsea and Barcelona after 90 minutes? If you're interested you've probably already read all about it in the papers, but I ask you - one shot on goal? At least I think it'll make for a more interesting final. Chelsea and Manchester United know each other a bit too well...

There are plenty of ways of motivating a goalkeeper to work really hard during training, but some ways are more extreme than others... Watch this amusing commercial that was created for the Bahrain national soccer team and its forthcoming game with Australia in June for the 2010 FIFA World Cup Asian Qualifiers.

Anyone seen the FIFA rankings recently? You have? Then turn away, this question is for those who don't follow the rankings religiously - like me. Ready? Then here goes. Which country has dominated the FIFA rankings for the last year? Brazil? Italy? Germany? England? (No just joking!). The answer is - Spain! I'm not one for statistics, numbers or tables (except for the latest league table) but I was really surprised that I missed that one. Did you notice it?

Spain are not just top either, they have been for the last 12 months and are now way ahead of their nearest rival. In fact thei...

Any number crunchers out there? Does 6 5 mean anything to you? No? Well, let me tell you about the Bosman case. No, just kidding, I won't bore you with that. All I will say is that the EU ruling that followed not only protected players without contracts, it also seemed to punish home nation players. Without the Bosman ruling, most of today's top flight divisions in Europe would not be the same.

Now things are moving that are intended to circumscribe the ruling and I believe this could have been done years ago but nobody thought of it. Firstly, some simple facts on the Bosman ruling...

So this is my first blog here, hopefully just one in a long series. What shall I write about? Don't expect to see exactly the same as you can read on the back page of your daily paper. The source for this blog will come more from the grass roots of football but concern issues that can also affect the upper echelons of the game. Now the ground rules have been set, let's get on.
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Look at this guy! Zlatan Ibrahimovich! He is amazing, astonishing, charming and Swede! Not to mention that he seems to prefer older women ;)