How a tiny Swedish team achieved one of the biggest ever shocks in European soccer
By Jamie Barton, Issy Ronald, CNN
(CNN) — In a small Swedish fishing village, there is a tiny soccer stadium tucked away beside a campsite and the shores of the Baltic Sea. It is the type of place where the land is so flat that the horizon sits just above the trees and the sky stretches so wide it seems possible to touch.
Here, in this unassuming spot, is where one of the greatest ever stories in European soccer unfolded this season. No one expected Mjällby AIF, a team that plays in a village of around 1,500 inhabitants, to contend for the Swedish league. After all, its budget is a fraction of some of Sweden’s biggest teams.
Yet somehow, on Monday, the team completed one of the sport’s biggest shocks and won the Allsvenskan – the top tier of Swedish soccer.
“It’s 1,500 inhabitants in the village where they play, and you’re just flabbergasted when you see this elite football going on,” Erik Hadzic – a reporter for TV4 Fotbollskanalen, who has covered the team for the last five years – tells CNN Sports.
“Mjällby winning the Swedish championship is arguably the biggest sensation in the history of the Swedish league.”
The tiny team from Hällevik has not just won the league, either. It has absolutely blown away the competition.
Having lost just one game all season, it is currently 11 points ahead of nearest challenger Hammarby in second, and with its 2-0 win over IFK Göteborg, Mjällby assured the title with three games remaining.
Win even one of its remaining fixtures – or draw two – and Mjällby will set a new record for the most points ever amassed by an Allsvenskan team, beating the record set by Swedish giant Malmö FF in 2010 and matched by AIK in 2018.
“Malmö is the richest club in Sweden and Mjällby has something like 15% of their budget, so everyone believed that Malmö would go on and win their third title in a row before this season started,” explains Hadzic.
Even when Mjällby enjoyed a strong start to the season, the team still wasn’t seen as a title contender. It was only after defeating Malmö in August that “all of a sudden, it felt like, ‘Yeah, they could really make it,’” Hadzic adds.
European soccer is no stranger to David and Goliath stories in recent years. Leicester City, Bayer Leverkusen and Montpellier have all shocked their respective leagues to claim unlikely titles.
But even those stories did not begin a decade prior, stranded in the third tier and fighting bankruptcy.
“You can’t really compare because Leicester still had really wealthy owners,” Olof Lundh, a Swedish sports journalist, tells CNN Sports. “I have a hard time finding equivalent achievements, especially considering they’re from this really small municipality.
“They shouldn’t even be in the top division,” he adds. “Just being in the top division is impressive, and being in the top half of the top division is super impressive and then winning the title, it’s incredible.”
The obvious question, then, is: how exactly did this happen? How is it possible for a team from a village approximately 1/250th the size of Malmö to fight off Sweden’s elite and have arguably the best season in the nation’s history?
Under chairman Magnus Emeus, a local businessman who returned to his hometown after working abroad, Mjällby has followed a philosophy whereby “you’re supposed to be able to measure everything,” says Lundh.
“I think they’ve just been really smart and worked really hard,” adds Hadzic. “They’ve been tremendously good in their scouting. They’ve found some good players, they’re giving players a second chance and they’ve just blossomed at Mjällby.”
And when your town is so small that everyone knows everyone else – Mjällby’s head coach is a school principal and its scout is a postman – your weaknesses can become your biggest strengths.
“It’s a team based on very high team spirit,” Hadzic explains. “Some of the players live in the same flat.”
“It’s something I never thought would happen in my life. I’m so incredibly grateful for this group,” striker Jacob Bergstrom said Monday, according to Reuters. “We showed that a collective can take you incredibly far, we have a lot of players who give everything for Mjällby, it’s fantastic.”
“I’ve been here for eight years (in total) and I have my best friends playing here and it’s all just wonderful, so I’m grateful.”
That spirit seeps out into the local community, too; the local florist recently developed its own chocolates to honor the club’s achievement.
What’s more, in sporting director Hasse Larsson, Mjällby has a man who has given decades of his life to the club.
“He’s like the heart and soul of the club,” says Hadzic. “He’s been a player, a manager, and now he’s a sporting director. Somehow, his soul embodies the whole club. He’s willing to do so much for Mjällby and willing to work so hard for them.”
At the same time, luck has played its part in Mjällby’s triumph. The club has taken advantage of several of the league’s biggest teams, including Malmö, underperforming and all beating each other, Lund pointed out.
That hard work will most likely continue ahead of next season when, should it emerge from the qualifying stage, Mjällby would be taking on Europe’s elite in the Champions League. The thought of the likes of Real Madrid or Liverpool making the journey to the edge of the Baltic Sea is one that the team’s fans would have laughed at just 12 months ago.
“I have a hard time putting it into words, I can honestly say. It’s so incredibly powerful,” Mjällby head coach Anders Torstensson said after Monday’s win, per Reuters. “Together with the team, we have kept it away from us, the pressure, the speculations and what is possible and not possible. It’s fantastic.
“Redeeming to stand here as Swedish champions with little bloody Mjällby. It’s unreal.”
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