MALMÖ. The even worse crisis is averted.
Malmö FF’s problem: Gische Molins-types are needed on the pitch together with more down-to-earth views of IFK Göteborg’s downfall than Barcelona’s ups and downs.
Halmstad BK did indeed come with an upward form curve and a 72-year-old coach who can breathe life into any ring wreck into a football team. But that HBK would look like an Allsvenskan top team, vs Malmö FFat the Eleda stadium, was still a blast.
The first 45 minutes were the most confused defensively I have seen from MFF in many, many years.
Saved summer peace
I assume that the former head coach Guillermo Molins halftime talk at 2-2 both contained equal parts emotional hair dryer as tactical dispositions after a half where three HBK players were usually more than five mispositioned MFF players in the defensive game.
In the second half, Malmö FF came together as a team, closed down and were the ones who pressured HBK into mistakes instead of the other way around.
Three Erik Botheim goals saved some summer vacation peace via 5-2.
It was touching to hear the Gische Molins chant from the stands and touching to hear him himself tell afterwards how emotionally moved he was by the whole afternoon.
But player Gische Molins had never accepted how his MFF performed in the first half. It had been seen and heard on the field.
Without an injured Pontus Jansson or Anders Christiansen, or their equivalents Marcus Rosenberg or Berang Safari, MFF was leaderless and structureless, emotionless towards Halmstad. Robin Olsen cannot lead a lost team from behind.
This is what MFF needs
New sporting director Philip Berglund needs to recruit character into the MFF squad and a coach – Per-Mathias Högmo? – with security and routine, not in search of immediate results or trips to Europe.
Preferably with heart, soul and history in Gische Molins next to the coach’s bench.
That is not the only thing Malmö FF needs in 2026.
Reality has partly caught up with MFF, but it is a mixed dose of Malmöite hubris and charm when Molins himself stated before the Halmstad match in interviews that the era of Malmö dominance is over – but that the same fate also befell Barcelona “before they found the right recipe again” and that it is only Bayern Munich who managed to continue to dominate.
Malmö FF has a significantly better starting position, but for us who followed IFK Gothenburg close to under 30 years, the parallels between Malmö FF and what became Blåvitt’s fall from the throne, from an MFF perspective, are frighteningly similar.
MFF has dominated the Allsvenskan during the 2000s in the same way as IFK Gothenburg during the 1980s and 90s.
Blåvitt was one of Scandinavia’s absolute richest clubs with close to SEK 100 million in equity at the end of 1997. After a then allsvenskan record loss in 2001, the glory days were definitely over for Blåvitt.
In 2025, MFF made a contemporary Allsvensian record loss of SEK 89.2 million.
Lower expectations
The clubs have gone from profiled chairman-authorities to strong white-collar management under Daniel Andersson and Håkan Mild respectively, and with supporter pressure which, in the case of IFK Göteborg, probably contributed to a new generation that is perhaps a little more – soft serve ice cream? – failed to perform in Blåvitt but many times succeeded better in other environments.
Supras Malmö 2003 wrote in an Instagram post via Norra Läktaren Malmö earlier this week about the spring’s achievements from management and team:
“The demand in Malmö FF is, and must be, merciless”.
I find it difficult to see that this is the type of environment that young talents in Swedish football in 2026 long to come to. Stand support and tifo at the Eleda stadium may be European class, but that tone of “demanding” needs to be turned down from the supporters.
New chairman Zlatko Rihter, new CEO Jimmy Rosengren and new sporting director Philip Berglund must let expectations land in a more down-to-earth Scanian crowd in order not to feed a spiral of negativity.
The requirements for Malmö FF to be a leader in the Allsvenskan have been built in there for decades anyway in the stadium, in Lilla Torg, in Turning Torso and Pildammsparken.
