July 15, 2023
Today’s early kick-off in the Swedish Allsvenskan saw the meeting of newly promoted Halmstads against Varnamo, who are in their second ever season in the top flight in Sweden. It was a match between 5th versus 11th.
Halmstad are 4 times winners of the Allsvenskan, the first coming under the leadership of Roy Hodgson back in 1976, and who then added a second title in 1979. They were relegated in 2017, returning to the top division after finishing second in the Superettan last year.
Home is the 10,873 capacity Orjans Vall, which has a grass pitch. Their average attendance this season was 8,025 and ticket prices for today’s game ranged between 200-250 SEK ( £15 to £19 ) for a seat and 200 SEK to stand, with concessions between 100-125 SEK ( £8 to £9 ). Halmstad is located in the west of Sweden, approximately half-way between Gothenburg and Malmo.
Halmstad made one change to their starting XI from their last match, a 2-1 victory at Norkopping, with Ghanaian midfielder Naeem coming in for Allansson. Iraqi midfielder Amir Al-Ammari ( 17 caps ) is on loan from IFK Goteborg, and full-back Phil Ofosu-Ayeh has one cap for Ghana, and has previously played for MSV Duisburg, Eintracht Braunschweig and Wolverhampton Wanderers.
The rest of the line-up were Swedish, with notable players including ex Blackburn Rovers and Derby County left-back Marcus Olsson ( 2 caps ) and 41 year old ex-Bochum centre-back Andreas Johansson ( 1 cap ). Striker Viktor Granath had scored 6 goals to-date this season whilst 21 year old attacking midfielder Erik Ahlstrand had three goals to his name. No other Halmstad player had scored more than once.
I used to work for a company that had a factory in Varnamo. I never was able to make a visit, but a colleague described it as a one-horse town, with a Scandic Hotel and a decent Pizzeria for something to eat in the evening. I never even though to ask if it had a football team, so I was surprised to see they had won promotion to play in the 2022 Allsvenskan, where they finished in 10th place.
Located in Jonkoping county, Varnamo has an estimated population of around 20,000 and is about 115km from Halmstad, so they and their supporters had a 90 minute journey by road for the match.
The manager of Varnamo is ex-Benfica, Napoli, Roma and Glasgow Rangers Swedish international Jonas Thern, who comes from the town, and his son is also currently with the club having played for Heerenveen and winning 4 caps. However, he was missing for today’s match.
Striker Gustav Engvall ( 2 caps ) was the only Varnamo player to have scored more than one goal this season, with 5 goals to his name and has previously played for Bristol City and KV Mechelen. Albanian winger Albion Ademi was featured in these diaries whilst with Mariehamn, for whom he scored 14 goals in the 2020 season in Finland, and veteran Belarus keeper Pilip Vaitsiaskhovich has been playing in Sweden since 2012, and has been with Varnamo since 2019. Midfielders Wenderson and Benardo Vilar are Brazilian, and defender Victor Eriksson has one cap.
The match was streamed live on Bet365.com, who made Halmstad 11/8 favourites, with Varnamo at 21/10 and the draw at 9/4. The temperature at the 15.00 local time kick-off was 26 degrees on a hot, sunny afternoon.
Halmstad were wearing blue shirts with black shorts, whilst Varnamo were in all red, but with lots of white writing all over the shirts.
The visiting supporters were packed into an open section of the seating behind one of the goals but the home supporters kept up their chanting for the whole 90 minutes.
Varnamo made a lively start to the match, and with 6 minutes played a long range left footed shot from Grozdanic was pushed over the bar, but keeper Nilsson didn’t seem to know too much about it. The visitors were passing the ball around nicely, with first time passes around statuesque defenders, but against the run of play Halmstad created a chance for Naeem, but his left-footed shot from the edge of the area was straight at the keeper, who gathered at the second attempt.
Varnamo responded with a cross from the left-wing which was glanced over the bar by Zeljkovic, and then opened the scoring in the 18th minute. Halmstad’s Ofoso-Ayeh made a pacy run down the right wing but his cross into the penalty area was cut out by Eriksson. Varnamo then quickly launched their own counter-attack, with Ademi, who had been exclusively playing on the right, being set free down the left wing. The Albanian looked up and played the ball across the face of goal where Engvall was advancing to steer back to the opposite corner of the goal as the keeper dived the other way.
Ahlstrand was at the heart of Halmstad’s attempts to respond, first showing nice skill to turn close the by-line inside the area on the left and chip towards the far post, but no team-mate was on hand to convert, and then from another cross from the left, Granath slid in at the near post, but his contact was not clean, and the ball went over the bar.
For Varnamo, Ademi played a give and go with Engvall but his shot from the edge of the area lacked power and was easily saved.
The visitors doubled their lead in the 29th minute. There didn’t seem to be any immediate danger when Engvall collect a loose ball on the left-hand side inside the home area, but he looked up and send a snap shot with little back-lift across goal, which crept inside the far post with the keeper floundering. At this stage Varnamo were well worth their lead, as Engvall moved to 7 goals for the season.
Halmstad continued to struggle and Svedberg picked up the first yellow card of the match for pulling back Wenderson as the Brazilian burst past him. A break for water was called after 32 minutes and during the interval, Halmstad keeper Nilsson was replaced, presumably with an injury.
The refreshments must have had a positive impact on Halmstad as they pulled a goal back almost immediately. Olsson was put in space down the left wing and his first-time low cross on the run was sliced into his own net by Eriksson via the far post.
Halmstad now looked a different side, and three minutes later a chip over the Varnamo back line reached Odosu-Ayeh, who controlled the ball on his chest, but the bounce was unkind and he could only poke over the bar on the stretch. In first-half added on time, Olsson’s in-swinging corner was flicked on at the near post but centre-back Johansson, sliding in at the back post, couldn’t get on the end of it.
Varnamo went in the dressing rooms with a 2-1 lead after having had 58% of the possession but Halmstad would have taken heart from their play in the closing stages of the half.
Halmstad looked to press from the restart and an incisive through pass by Ahlstrand behind the square defence freed Ofosu-Ayeh and the low cross went across the face of the goal, but the sliding Naeem could only put the ball 10 yards wide.
Varnamo had been confidently passing the ball around at the back, but Larsson then passed directly to Ahlstrand but the striker was off-balance and couldn’t capitalise. Ahlstrand was increasingly coming to the fore, and looked a decent player. Despite being all left-foot he was now playing on the right and produced the game’s comedy moment, pushing keeper Vaitsiaskhovich into the linesman when the Belarus keeper had needlessly hared out of his area to see the ball out of play. The referee didn’t see the funny side though !
Little was seen from Varnamo as an attacking threat in the second half and the play was virtually exclusively in the Varnamo half. In an attempt to stem the flow of play Varnamo made a triple substitution, but by taking off Ademi it seemed to be counter-productive.
Olsson managed to get a foot to a corner, but the ball popped up for an easy catch for the keeper. Halmstad managed to get the ball into the net in the 69th minute but it was chalked off by the linesman’s flag for offside. Substitute Cooper-Love fed Ofosu-Ayeh and his square ball was tapped home at close range by Granath. Unfortunately for Halmstad, Ofosu-Ayeh had timed his run too early and was beyond the last man.
A flowing move involving Ahlstrand, Granath and Ahlstrand again saw the ball reach Cooper-Love 10 yards from goal, but after taking time to pick his spot, the side-footed effort hit the post and rebound to safety for another let-off for the visitors.
Halmstad finally got the equaliser their second half display deserved with again Ahlstrand and Ofosu-Ayeh the creators. Ahlstrand’s ball down the right saw Ofosu-Ayeh out muscle Bergh to break clear on the right and his delivery to the penalty spot was met by Naeem, whose header found the top corner via the gloves of the keeper.
Despite 7 minutes of injury time being played, Halmstad rarely looked as if they would grab the winner, although Vaitsiaskhovich had to be alert to push away a dangerous cross from the left before Granath could head home. In fact, the last chance of the match fell to Varnamo, but from 10 yards the unmarked Bernardo Vilar could only head a corner high over the bar.
At the final whistle both sides would probably have felt it was two points dropped. Despite falling two goals behind, Halmstad would be thinking their second half display warranted all three points, whereas Varnamo would be disappointed at letting a two-goal lead slip to record their first draw of the season.
Highlights : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cibfSri31w
Halmstad BK : Nilsson ( Pahlsson ) – Ofosu-Ayeh, Johansson, Baffo, Olsson – Karlsson ( Cooper-Love ), Svedberg, Al-Ammari ( Allansson ), Naeem – Ahlstrand, Viktor Granath
IFK Varnamo : Vaitsiaskhovich – Eriksson, Larsson, Grozdanic, Lohikangas ( Nasstrom ) – Ademi ( Becirovic ), Winsth ( Bergh ) Wenderson – Engvall, Johansson ( Junior Adjei ), Zeljkovic ( Bernardo Vilar )
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