Honours even between Malmö and AIK, as Hamad secures a late win for Hammarby.

The return of the Swedish Allsvenskan last week brought out many a football fan, despite the fellow return of the ‘beast from the east’ across much of Europe.

Many predict Malmö FF to achieve their third successive title this season, and for AIK to be their biggest challengers. The two giants of Swedish Football faced each other in the second round of the 2018 Allsvenkan.

The rivalry between the two stems not from geographical reasoning, but from the rivalry of the Northern folk of Stockholm and the Southern of Scania.

This rivalry goes a way back and has now found it’s way into football, and on this occasion it was AIK who would make the cross country trip down to Malmö. The visitors opened the scoring through Henok Goitom on 12 minutes, when Tarik Elyounoussi found him with a low cross across the six yard box.

But Malmö equalised on half time, when goal scorer Goitom handled the ball inside his own box. The referee awarded Malmö a penalty and captain Markus Rosenberg sent the keeper the wrong way.

Controversy came in the second half when Malmö’s Franz Brorsson was given a second yellow card for a seemingly light pull on Kofi Adu, but despite the man advantage Malmö kept AIK at bay for the remaining half an hour to seal the victory.

IFK Norrköping left it late to overcome IF Brommapojkarna last week, but were ahead against Örebro SK after 20 minutes in the only Saturday fixture of game week two. Ian Smith, the young winger from Costa Rica, opened the scoring when he tapped into an almost empty net after sprinting from deep to arrive in the box.

Örebro could’ve felt slightly hard done by after two strong penalty shouts either side of half time were turned by the referee, but all was not lost and former Östersunds FK midfielder Filip Rogic saved a late point with a deft finish from the edge of the box.

Graham Potter’s Östersunds fell short against Djurgårdens IF in their opening game of the season, and faced one of the league’s newcomers Dalkurd FF in game week two. But despite the slightly easier opposition, Potter’s side were thumped by three goals to nil.

In front of just 1,644 people at Dalkurd’s Gavlevallen stadium, a Mohamed Buya Turay saw off a weak-looking Östersunds side with ease. Turay’s first goal trickled over the line after the forward hit the post from 18 yards out.

Oliver Berg headed home a second ten minutes after the restart, before later driving a shot at Josh Wicks in the Östersunds goal and forcing the save, to which Turay pounced on and as cute as you like, chipped it over Wicks for three.
Fellow new boys IF Brommapojkarna also found their first win of the season, with a solid 2-0 win over BK Häcken.

After a narrow defeat to Norrköping on the opening day, Luis Pimenta’s BP side were looking to be a good addition to the Allsvenskan.

Bajram Ajeti opened the scoring on 19 when he chested the ball over the line from a cross from wide. The blow was worsened for Häcken just before half time when Alexander Faltsetas was shown a questionable straight red card for a late tackle on BP captain Gustav Sandberg-Magnusson.

Häcken manager Andreas Alm was furious with the referee and even more so when Daleho Irandust was shown a second yellow for a push on a BP player, right in front of the referee.

BP just had to see out the victory, and were relieved to see Petar Petrovic slot home for 2-0 in the 89th minute.

Djurgårdens found an early goal through Markus Danielsson against Trelleborgs FF on Sunday, as they did against Östersunds last week. The defender capitalised on some poor Trelleborgs defending, when a corner bounced to him at the back post before he volleyed the ball into the roof of the net.

The goal of the weekend though came from Erik Anderson, who levelled for Trelleborgs just before he hour mark. When a long ball was cleared only to the edge of the box, there was Andersson to fizz the ball into the side of the net, leaving former Manchester City keeper Andreas Isakson stranded.

A close second for that award was Papa Diouf’s goal on Sunday, which proved to be the difference between Kalmar FF and IF Elfsborg. The goal was created by for Swedish International Rasmus Elm, who lobbed the ball over a high Elfsborg line, where Diouf took a touch and turned to rifle the ball home from 6 yards.

The penultimate game of round two came on Tuesday night where IFK Göteborg hosted Hammarby IF. Both sides had the oppurtunity to take 1st place of the Allsvenskan, having claimed opening day victories.

Mix Diskerud put Göteborg ahead on the hour mark when he fired low past Johan Wiland from inside the box. Bjorn Paulsen found the equaliser for Hammarby just two minutes later when he met a corner at the near post, and Jiloan Hamad found the winning goal in extra time for Hammarby, and already his fourth goal of the season to place Hammarby top of the table after two games.

Next week, Hammarby host BP and AIK will face Djurgårdens in the first Stockholm derby of the season.

Game Week Two results:

Dalkurd FF 3-0 Östersunds SK
Djurgårdens IF 1-1 Trelleborgs FF
IF Brommapojkarna 2-0 BK Häcken
IFK Göteborg 1-2 Hammarby IF
Kalmar FF 1-0 IF Elfsborg
Örebro SK 1-1 IFK Norrköping
Malmö FF 1-1 AIK