Third time's a charm?

Hammarby v. Umea, Damallsvenskan Round 1
10 april 2011, Kanalplan, Stockholm
Weather: colder than I'd like
Pictures

There were four games on the slate for this weekend: Damallsvenskan's opener was televised on Saturday, as were the two first matches in the Women's Champions League semifinals. However, I'm most looking forward to the game on Sunday — my first game of the year, and marking my third season as a Hammarby supporter. I'm also looking forward to seeing Kanalplan after a year and a half worth of construction projects.

The first thing I note when I arrive is that they've changed the sign at the top of the hill, to a more modern looking and professional looking one, although the old one had a certain rustic charm. They have also finally finished the reconstructive surgery on the entrance: the gate is now properly back on the side where it belongs, and the steps down to it are clean new concrete and a little more safe. Snow is still piled up in the end zones, and it's very ugly looking now because it's covered with the black rubber pebbly bits that serve as the artificial dirt for the artificial turf on the pitch.

The first half doesn't go particularly well for Hammarby; they have a few off-target shots within the first ten minutes, but it's Umeå's Sofia Jakobsson who draws first blood with a fine solo effort up the right flank. 0-1 to Umeå and the team huddles and lets out a war cry to celebrate. Hammarby's captain, defender Matilda Agné, shuts down an attack by Umeå in the 19th and gets some cheering from the Hammarby partisans standing around the left corner of the field, but everyone in the stands gasps in appreciation five minutes later, when Hammarby's goalkeeper Minna Meriluoto makes a fantastic reflex save against Maria Nordbradt's hard and close shot. Her teammates help her up and pat her; the applause from the audience is sustained. But she's not finished with the theatrics. She comes out to punch away the resulting corner kick, then within a minute has to paw away a screamer of a shot from Hanna Pettersson that was headed for the upper right corner.

Sometime during the first half I notice that, on the other side of the field, someone is flying a Swiss flag, presumably in support of Umeå's Swiss player Ramona Bachmann, who has returned from a year in America, with WPS's Atlanta Beat. She's a talented, entertaining, and controversial player, who has made no bones about the fact that she was not too happy in the US, and was happy to return to Sweden. She has been injured, though, and I was not sure whether she would even be making the trip to Stockholm for today's game.

The half ends without too much further incident, so it's time to go poke around a bit and see what's new. I am happy to notice that last year's mud pit behind the bleachers has been replaced by a building; there are hot dogs roasting away on a nearby grill; there are three young women at a souvenir stand, where I see that Hammarby is continuing their "Söder Bönor" advertising campaign. New this year, one can buy actual cans (presumably of beans) with the logo, and the players' names and numbers listed as ingredients. They are also having a "Guess the number of beans in the glass jar" competition, for a season pass. I think it's 375, but out loud I guess 385, in order to avoid having to pronounce the number seven, which I'm still lousy at.

The second half starts with Hammarby looking a little more aggressive in at least the first ten minutes, and Umeå are nearly forced to concede an own-goal. On the resulting corner kick, Hammarby's outstanding off-season acquisition, Japanese play Mami Yamguchi, attempts a bicycle kick from only two meters out, but unfortunately for her Umeå keeper Caroline Jönsson is well-placed and the ball goes right to her. In the 63rd, Bachmann comes in for Umeå and wastes no time at all, receiving her yellow card in the 64th. Talk about Swiss efficiency!

Attendance is announced at 973. The sunlight goes away, the wind picks up, and I think with a little tinge of regret of the long underwear that I had packed but decided against wearing. It's a little chilly. When will I learn that the first Damallsvenskan game is always cold? The winner of the 'guess the beans' contest is announced and it isn't me. In the 75th a chant starts, and it's explained to me that the chant is exhorting the players to get a move on, and that this is a common thing to do when there's only 15 minutes left and your team is behind.

Hammarby is trying, after all, and Yamaguchi is being a little more effective now, receiving and holding on to the ball. In the 77th, Hammarby subs in a newcomer to the premier league, Magdalena Ericsson. They get a corner kick in the 80th, a nicely taken ball that five or six players swipe their heads at, in a way that almost looked choreographed. Meriluoto stuffs an attempt by Bachmann; Hammerby subs in Lisa Grönborg, another premier league debutante; Yamaguchi gets a yellow card for perhaps leaning a little to heavily on one of her old teammates from Umeå. In the 88th Umeå takes a shot that pings off the upper right corner, and Meriluoto goes up for it, but she is still on the ground when the rebound comes out to Jakobsson, who puts the ball in. 0-2 to Umeå and that's pretty much the game. Meriluoto and Jakobsson are named as players of the match and receive flowers for their efforts. A fair result, all in all. I'm sorry that my team didn't win but it could easily have been worse, and I remember the days when a loss by only two goals to Umeå was hardly something to hang your head over.

On the other hand... "It doesn't look good for Hammarby" says the headline at damfotboll... hmm, hmm, where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, that's what the journalists were saying about Bälinge early in the season, back in 2008. I supported Bälinge too. Uh-oh.

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Fotboll, fußball, football, and fotboll again: It was a football-heavy weekend to say the least, with Saturday's league opener (pitting last year's second place team Kopparberg/Göteborg FC against this year's most outspokenly ambitious team Tyresö FF) and two Champions League games (Olympique Lyonnais hosting Arsenal, and Duisburg against Potsdam), followed on Sunday by the game noted above. The final scores of all these games I watched have a sort of pleasing pattern to them: 0-0, 2-0, 2-2, 0-2...

The first game was okay, considering that it was the first game of the year and a goalless draw at that, although the second half was a little slow and it was not as exciting as the other three. One highlight was Jane Törnqvist attempting a bicycle kick in the last few minutes. It didn't work, but it looked good.

In Women's Champions League action, Duisburg against Potsdam was a quite exciting game, with plenty of back-and-forth action, and four very nice looking goals scored. In the second game, with 20,000 onlookers, Sweden's Lotta Schelin scored twice for Lyon in the first twelve minutes of the game. Her goals were scored in a nearly identical style, starting with her receiving the ball on the left side and taking a shot past the keeper, into the far side netting, from an acute angle. Let's hope she can do more of this in the summer, for the national team in this year's World Cup.