If you think Scottish fitba is bad, see how worse it is in Sweden...

[CyberSauzee]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/oct/19/hooliganism-sweden

Players and coaches being threatened, poor standards on the park, clubs out of Europe, fighting in family sections... as the article says, a throw back to the 80's in the UK.

[truehibernian]

Qualified for the last five major football tournaments, their U21 side semi finalists in 2009 and topped their group for 2011 Euros, only to be beaten by a superb Swiss side (whose nation is on the up).

It's what's on the pitch that matters and to be brutally honest, Sweden and the other Scandic countries are lightyears ahead in terms of facilities, standard and progress.

Poor poor article which only reflects the events off the field really.

They gubbed our national side with ease (and not full strength), and one of their "poor" domestic sides taught us a football lesson home and away in the Inter Toto.

Would rather be were they are football wise.

[LancashireHibby]

Qualified for the last five major football tournaments, their U21 side semi finalists in 2009 and topped their group for 2011 Euros, only to be beaten by a superb Swiss side (whose nation is on the up).

It's what's on the pitch that matters and to be brutally honest, Sweden and the other Scandic countries are lightyears ahead in terms of facilities, standard and progress.

Poor poor article which only reflects the events off the field really.

They gubbed our national side with ease (and not full strength), and one of their "poor" domestic sides taught us a football lesson home and away in the Inter Toto.

Would rather be were they are football wise.

Not got any figures to back it up but I'd imagine the majority of their national side play outside of Sweden, which means the poor state of the domestic league doesn't necessarily translate to the national side.

[Sir David Gray]

Not got any figures to back it up but I'd imagine the majority of their national side play outside of Sweden, which means the poor state of the domestic league doesn't necessarily translate to the national side.

:agree: Out of the squad of nineteen that was called up to play the Netherlands last week, only two of them play their club football in Sweden.

Five play in the Netherlands
Three play in England
Two play in France
Two play in Denmark
One plays in Italy
One plays in Norway
One plays in Scotland
One plays in Switzerland
One plays in Saudi Arabia

That's a decent proportion of that squad playing their club football at a pretty high level.

[truehibernian]

Does it not also mean they have really good coaching given most that now play for top Euro sides have had a good grounding in their domestic game ? The likes of Larsson, Ibrahimovic, Mjallby, etc all started their careers in Scandinavia. 11 of the 18 squad members for the recent Scotland match were all England based (admittedly some are English too :greengrin).

I just think that Sweden, Denmark and Norway, internationally, put Scotland to shame at present. That must come down to coaching, education, facilities and investment in football.

[Keith_M]

After reading the article, I now understand the unrest at the worst club...


"AIK, who are coached by the former Rangers player Alex Miller...."


Poor Sods. :wink:

[joe breezy]

It's no that bad, Elfsborg beat Hibs with relative ease when we were over there, not that long ago...

Some of Helsingborg's lads met us that day and they seemed awright, had a good laugh and a drink with them, they said there was trouble at times but mostly small scale, 20 v 30 kind of thing and usually away from grounds

The AIK incident was cringeworthy, laying into fans standing just a few feet away from older ladies, poor show

Not sure about how accurate the rest of the article is, from what I know it's not as bad as it is in Italy, or Poland, or Russia