Imagine completing an entire league season unbeaten without conceding a goal and still not being crowned champions. Those are the mixed emotions facing the fourth-tier Swedish women’s club Ängelholm but, as their coach, Ulf Johansson, says, a screenshot of the league table going viral has helped his players start to appreciate the magnitude of what they achieved.
They won 15 of their 18 league matches but three goalless draws meant they missed out on the title by a point. His overwhelming emotion, however, is pride. “In the last few games, all the teams just wanted to score against us, so they were using five or six attackers in the last 25 minutes,” he says.
“They knew they’d lost the game but they just wanted to burst the bubble for us. But we still managed it. The girls were really happy, there was just a lot of shouting and screaming when we did it.
“It’s been really crazy. Everyone has seen the social media and newspapers all over the world have been calling. It’s given the girls an energy boost. It’s been a long season but you can see they’re happy and they finally understand what they have done.”
Their season is not over yet as they are competing for promotion via the playoffs and have already come through the first round – winning 8-2 on aggregate, finally conceding – and they are halfway through a two-leg promotion/relegation decider against Strövelstorps GoIF/IF Salamis, a team from the third tier. The first leg ended 1-1 and the second leg takes place on Sunday.
Johansson says: “We’re too good for division four, we have proven it, so we need to go to division three to develop the players. That’s very important.
“But we had a two-year plan: the first year to establish the team at senior level and then next year to go up to division three. We won’t die if we don’t go up, but now when we have the chance we’re really going for it.”
That is another unusual aspect to Ängelholm’s achievementsThey are in their first season after rebuilding in the bottom tier with a new squad, having previously played at a higher level before losing players to other clubs. “It’s a young team,” Johansson says. “They’re only 15-17 years old and it’s the first senior season. I’m really surprised that we did this well. I couldn’t dream of it. They have had an amazing journey.”
Those youngsters include the 17-year-old goalkeeper Nellie Bengtsson, who played the entire league campaign without conceding. She told Helsingborgs Dagblad: “It is quite difficult to take in what is happening right now. It is crazy that we have received so much attention. That is not something we thought would happen.
“It all started with someone seeing a video on TikTok that she put in our group chat. Then we’ve seen posts on Instagram and other places. It is great that we managed to go through the season without letting in a goal. If you think about it it is quite easy to concede. One mistake is enough and the ball goes in.”
Bengtsson has been learning from the club’s goalkeeper coach, Matt Pyzdrowski, who played for the American clubs Chicago Fire Premier and Portland Timbers, as well as for Ängelholm’s men’s team. Bengtsson saved a penalty in the campaign and Johansson recalls her tipping one effort on to the crossbar when he had been certain their clean streak was about to end. “Nellie has done some incredible saves. She’ll develop into a really good goalkeeper.”
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It all provokes one question, though: how did they not win the league? Ljungbyheds IF let in 14 goals but scored significantly more than Ängelholm, to finish with +107 goal difference, and the only time they dropped points was in their games against Ängelholm, who also drew 0-0 twice with third-placed Västra Karups FK.
“It was a strange feeling, I have to admit,” Johansson says, on not winning the league. “We beat them [Ljungbyheds IF] 1-0 and then we played away [in August] and they parked the bus. We dominated but we couldn’t get the goal.
“After that game we were disappointed because we knew they were probably going to win the rest of their games, but then I said: ‘Hey, let’s go for keeping the zero intact and not losing’. The girls really liked that idea and after that we just fought like hell.”
The club’s men’s team are coached by the former Wigan, Groningen and Sweden centre-back Andreas Granqvist, who Johansson says has been a big help to him, adding of the women’s team’s playing style that has ensured all their shutouts: “The secret is how we want to play football. We really focused on aggressive pressing, high up on the field, and keeping the ball under pressure on the opponents’ side. That’s the key this season.
“They really worked hard. When we lost the ball, they won it back directly. So it’s been really hard for teams to even get a goalscoring chance.”
