You know, since the day I got here people have been telling me about summer in Stockholm. People say, “Just wait until June. Stockholm is so nice at that time,”. So being the dutiful foreigner I am, I waited until June and then visited the capital. I went to watch Neven and the Serbian national team face Sweden at Rasunda stadium. Unfortunately, summertime Stockholm didn’t quite live up to its billing. When I arrived, it was a bit chilly but nice and sunny. However, in the hour it took me to walk from downtown to Neven’s hotel to get the tickets, the weather started to change. It actually made the walk more pleasant at first. The overcast skies prevented me from sweating during my walk and I even saw some cool stuff like a bridge rising for a ship. However, shortly after this video the rain came.
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| Me standing under a tree in the pouring rain. You can't see the rain because my camera is my US cell phone and it can only do so much. |
It was awful. I had
no umbrella because trusty weather.com said that there was a 10% chance of rain
all day. I also had no idea where I was
since I have no gps on my phone here. My
US phone has gps, but that doesn’t work in Europe so I had to wander in the
rain looking for the nearest metro station.
After about 30 minutes of looking in the rain, I just gave up and walked
back to downtown on the exact path which I came.
Once back downtown I did some cool stuff. I visited the palace and royal treasury (sorry, no pics from the palace, they're not allowed), then
sat down for lunch at my favorite restaurant (McDonald’s) before heading to the
stadium for the match. The game itself
was actually pretty bad, but I enjoyed it a lot. I got to see one of my favorite players in
the world, Zlatan Ibrahimovic. He’s one
of my soccer idols and I can only dream about having his talent. Also, Neven scored for Serbia so it was
pretty cool to be in attendance for that.
The general play though was kind of sloppy. Both teams were finishing a long camp and had
one eye on the future: Sweden on the Euros and Serbia on sandy beaches around
the world. It didn’t help that after a
day of storms the geniuses at Rasunda decided to water the pitch just before
kickoff. As a result the play was very
choppy and all the goals came from set pieces.
Sweden won, 2-1. I took a few
pictures before my phone died on me. For
that reason I don’t have any pictures of after the match, when Neven came over
and talked to me and the guys who came to the game with me. He was even generous enough to give me his
jersey, something I had not even thought to ask for. I really appreciate that he did that and I
hope I can make it over to Germany for one of his club games. That would be pretty awesome.
While I was getting rained on in Stockholm, back in Enkoping
the team got together and had their crisis meeting. Apparently I was wrong on the attendees: it
was players only. Some stuff stays in
the locker room, but what I can say from the reports I got is that the players
believe things can and will get better and that our problems start on the
practice ground. We haven’t been pushing
ourselves hard enough in training to prepare us for the games. It was agreed that our lack of intensity in
training was a big reason why we were having trouble dealing with the pressure
and intensity that comes in the matches.
Curiously enough, after that team meeting, instead of
training the boys went next door to a miniature golf course. I actually think that that decision was a
good one. We have a lot of young players
who may be a bit burdened by this season we’re having. It is important that we do some things
together that don’t have the shadow of a 1-7 record hanging over it. I think that a team function would do wonders
for us at this point. If we were a BPL
or Serie A team, the manager would have taken us to Cyprus or La Manga or
somewhere to get away from it all for 3-4 days.
Then we could come back to our hometown ready to start fresh again. I don’t know if the people who decided do
miniature golf were thinking that way, but hats off to them for that
decision. It also made me feel better
about missing training. I probably did
more aerobic activity by walking 4-5 miles than any other player on the team
that day.
Yesterday’s training was a bit higher intensity than
usual. It was also a bit of a fitness
session, though that term used here pales in comparison to what it would mean
in USL. I hope the team meeting has a
positive impact on how we train from this point forward. It was also the National Day of Sweden, which
is something like US’s Independence Day, just that Sweden never had to declare
independence from anyone. I spent the
day doing a whole bunch of nothing, and I loved it.
Our next game is Saturday afternoon against Vasalunds. They’re currently in 2nd place in
the league so it should be a difficult game.
As always, I think we can win it if we’re confident and play to
win. The teams in this league are so
similar in talent that your mind can go a long way towards whether you win or
lose. If the game tomorrow is 1-1 with
20 minutes left, then I would bet that the team that more believes it will win
will find the winning goal. If that
situation comes up and we’re thinking that we should just hold on to the tie,
then we’ll surely lose. The inverse is
also true. Hopefully we’ll get the win
and move from the bottom of the table!
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