Häcken 0 - 1 MAIF

Sunny and weather in Rambergsvallen. 2203 spectators at the stadium, a little embarassing for a half-million inhabitants' town.

A quite balanced 1st half, occasions on both sides. 0-0 was not a steal in any way.
After the pause Häcken came back very agressive and had a couple of very danogerous occasions directly. Asper could not just sit and watch. MAIF was not undangerous though with their counter-attacks.
At the 58th minute Nicklasson on the left side near the central line sent a seemingly anonymous crossing to the center, Grahn lets it pass to Osiako behind, who immediatley made a very accurate pass to El Kabir, perfect control, little shoot feint, moves ahead 2 steps close to the zone line and shoots in the other side of the goal, goal. Nobody expected it at that time I think, it looked very much less dangerous than some other action. The Häcken keeper was very late, many defenders in front of him hiding the ball, and Eken's crossing the area free and with speed in the other direction was probably too much distraction.

I think too many players want to just score and play alone, instead of passing the ball when some colleagues are free. It was very much the case of Musse Pigg before he scored, Eken and Grahn had also a couple of situations. A lot of good balls ending up high in the sky nowhere close to the goal.

Eken missed 2 occasions, 1 with an open goal (although I believe that one was blown off), Gitselov and Nicklasson 1 each. None of the 3 was strong enough, so the keeper picked all 3 easily.

From the 70th minute the team fell back as usual, not holding the pressure up, too much to my taste, especially considering the 2 brasilians Häcken launched in made a lot of mess (one particular one ball landed on the upper side of Asper's net). Then suddenly some midfielders woke up at 85th minute and put a lot of pressure towards the end of the game.

Strong defense, Westerberg gets a lot of balls.
Still too many passing mistakes in the middle.
Eken not in his best day (again), but still draws a lot of defense attention.
Musse Pigg running like a maniac like usual, keeps the opponent team very low. I like that style better than 10-man defense.

Good referee, he didn't fall for any of the players' ugly tricks.

We comforted our 3rd place of the league with 14 points (out of 21 possible).
Next game on monday when we receive the current leader (1 match behind against 2nd Malmö FF).