Swedish League Disappointment Malmo FF Battered By Donetsk

If you like to bet on sports in Sweden the chances are you’re already familiar with the rather lackluster performance of Champions league hopefuls Malmo FF as their league season came to a rather ignominious end, a defeat in the last game before the winter summing up their slump in performance recently. But does their performance in the Swedish league equate with their chances in the European competition?

Malmo Massacred In Ukraine

• Lose to Norrkoping 2-0
• Lose to Shakhtar Donetsk 4-0
• Face PSG next in Champions League

Up against the high flying IFK Norrkoping shouldn’t have been as much of a struggle as Malmo FF made it look, but the team from the mouth of the Motala Strom has done much this season to confound expectations widely held by press and pundits pre-season when they were almost written off as an also-ran in the Swedish league. That they eventually won the Allsvenskan title is a triumph worthy of a Hollywood remake, especially given in their last match they beat Malmo FF.

Malmo FF are the Swedish League defending champions, but the seemed ill-prepared to meet Snoka as the Nya Parken lads pushed the ball about almost at will, both Emir Kujovic and Argnor Ingvi slotting goals home to give them a 2-0 win on which to finish their season leaving Malmo FF with egg on their faces for a performance that will not be sending a shiver of fear down the spines of their next European opponents. However Malmo’s disappointing display shouldn’t detract from Norrkoping’s win.

“It’s unreal.” Admitted IFK Norrkoping manager Jan Andersson as his team celebrated their Swedish League title win. Something the bookies will doubtless agree with, their long odds paying off for lucky punters who backed the team from Braviken before the season’s start. But their victory against Malmo FF was just the culmination of steady hard-fought results, with a cohesive stability to the team that proved tricky for opponents to break down.

Fifth Place Swedish League Finish For Malmo FF

“The way we’ve surprised everyone is amazing.” Said Emir Kujovic, the Swedish league’s top scorer with 21 goals to his name, reflecting perhaps how successful their low key approach has been throughout. There have been some signings from elsewhere certainly, but these haven’t be big names or wunderkind, not superstars like the next Chinese NBA prospect or whatever, just solid players who do their jobs, the core of the team remaining firmly based on local talent brought up through the ranks.

If you’re Swedish gambling laws of nature would suggest this gave the team all the chances of a snowball in a microwave, you might now need to reassess your criteria since it has proven a winning formula. The ensemble entity of Norrkoping demonstrating that a few superstars scattering the field can’t compete over the long haul against a tightly meshed team with a determination driven by a need to contradict their critics.

Of course you’d think that this kick in the teeth in the Swedish League would have left Malmo a tad down in the dumps, a fifth place finish in a domestic competition not actively suggesting you’ll do all that well in wider, international, tournments, and their fixture against Shakhtar Donestsk seemed likely to be a challenge not to their footballing ability but to what managers love to refer to in post-match tv interviews as “heart”. Malmo had to show some, and they did, Donetsk ripped it out and ate it.

Determined Donetsk Destroy Malmo

Till their game with Swedish League fifth placers Malmo FF, Donetsk hadn’t managed to score at all in the Champions League, a drought that had their eager fans almost morose with disappointment, and so perhaps Malmo expected an easier time of it. What they got, however, was a Donetsk team determined to prove a point just as much as Norrkoping, and the result was a 4-0 bludgeoning of the Swedish side that left tabloids gambling news headlines could tell the whole story in just three words.

Oleksandr Gladkyy put Donetsk ahead just before the half hour mark, but it was after the interval that Malmo’s defeat in the last game of the Swedish League began to look like having been let off easy. Donetsk’s Darijo Srna scored a penalty less than five minutes into the 2nd half and that seemed to knock Malmo sideways and from then on in the only surprise was that the boys from Eastern Ukraine didn’t score more than two more.

De Silva Eduardo grabbed the third, and Santos Alex Teixeria the fourth for Donetsk to send a message both to their detractors and their loyal fans both, leaving Swedish league losers Malmo reeling. Of course their next Champions League opposition, Paris St. Germain, is the current home of their best known export since Abba, Zlatan Ibrahimovic. I can’t wait to see the odds at ComeOn! Sportsbook on how many he’s going to put past this currently adrift Malmo FF, his former side.