Wednesday Evening in Thunderdome

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Graffiti on a transformer box

It is now 20 September 2006, and here I am in the northern university town of Umeå, home of the famous and ferociously talented Umeå IK, the most storied team in women’s club soccer. Going into tonight’s game, UIK is riding an unbeaten streak of 41 games across all competitions, and has a chance to seal the championship of the 2006 season with a victory over their opponents KIF Örebro. The game is being advertised heavily—there have been ads during the nightly news, and there are stickers and posters pasted around town.

The clubhouse

Acting on a tip from an insider, earlier in the day I had stopped by the team clubhouse, which is a house painted in the team colors right across the street from the stadium. I knocked—nobody answered, but the front door was open, so in I went. Inside, it still looked like a house, a house with an efficient, competent housekeeper who is keeping up (barely) with the 20 kids there who play soccer. The wooden floors are piled neatly with cardboard boxes of ankle tape and high-performance underwear; the walls are lined with posters. Upstairs there are several offices, and I am helped by a friendly young woman who sells me tickets to tonight’s game and takes me down to see the trophies won by UIK athletes—the trophies won by the women’s soccer team, including the two UEFA cup trophies, are especially prominent.

A case of the bling

“See that one?” she points at another trophy. “We had to have that one fixed, the girls broke it during the celebrations.”

A couple hours later I am standing at the front gates of Gammliavallen, UIK’s home stadium. The UIK players on the 2003 national team, which memorably came in second place in the Women's World Cup of that year, have stamped their bootprints into the cement just outside the gates. Yellow-jacketed volunteers are everywhere, inside and outside the gates, and more and more fans are wandering up.

A UIK official suspects a spy from Stockholm

There's excitement in the air, and 45 minutes before the game begins, there are already more people here than were at Kristineberg IP in Stockholm last Sunday. As we wait for the gates to open, a small grey Volkswagen with UIK defender Karolina Westberg’s name and number stenciled on it drives up and is allowed through. “They have drivers?” I wonder, stupefied. Eventually the gates clang open, and those of us clever enough to buy tickets in advance press through. First stop, the souvenir stand, which is well-stocked and run by a friendly woman who is patient with me as I dig though the piles of stuff.

You can't make this stuff up (look right above the building)

I make my way up to my assigned seat on the second level, where the temperature is decidedly lower. I had purchased the bright yellow UIK scarf purely as a souvenir, but I put it on anyway—feeling more than a little self-conscious, as if I am betraying my beloved Djurgården/Älvsjö, UIK’s league rivals. I console myself by imagining to be a spy deep under cover. At 6:35 a rainbow appears, right over the UIK players who are having a spirited warm up on the southern half of the field as the thumpy music plays. Clearly UIK are favored of the gods. Meanwhile, the KIF players at the north end are taking their warm-ups in a lower gear, saving their strength for what lies ahead.

Running around in the corner

The Volkswagen mentioned earlier is now parked in the center circle. As the players head in from warmups, Westberg is held back—she stands at the midline on a pedestal briefly—the announcer says something I don’t catch at all except the word “Linköping” several times, the fans applaud, and then she leaps down and runs into the locker room. The car is driven off the pitch. What was that all about? Was she named MVP last week against Linköping, and so she gets a car? Wow. UIK really is rich!

Tonight’s starting lineups

Gametime. UIK and KIF dutifully give racism the red card during their lineups, just as Djurgården/Älvsjö and Kopparbergs/Göteberg did last Sunday. The sun is now down and the stadium lights are on, which is playing bloody hell with my camera, which is why what follows is more text than pictures.

Ominous music is played as UIK comes back out of the tunnel, and the chanting from the fans starts immediately after the ball is kicked off. In an early signs of how the game is going to go, UIK’s prodigy Marta lobs in a dangerous long ball that a KIF defender just barely gets to before an onrushing UIK attacker. KIF isn’t too intimidated yet, though, and takes a decent close-range shot a minute later. On the UIK counterattack, Marta gets tripped up near the KIF box and rather dramatically rolls for about 10 meters, handling the ball as she does so—the ball is still in bounds but everyone slows to a stop, expecting the referee’s whistle. UIK protests that Marta was tripped, KIF argues for a hand ball. The referee apparently feels the two things cancel out, and motions for play to continue.

Sjöström on the sideline

For the next 20 minutes or so, UIK controls the ball and tries to work the ball into KIF’s box. The fans laugh, cheer, and “ooooo” as Marta dazzles with fancy footwork and clever passes. There's a moment of high comedy in the 27th minute, when Marta, running at top speed, gets picked off by the referee and they both stagger backwards. Marta quickly retrieves her own ball, cuts back once, cuts back again and nutmegs the referee who is now frantically trying to get out of the way, but is not sure which direction “out of the way” is.

Marta is fun to watch, there’s no doubt, but she only has the time to work her magic because of the strength of the team around her; UIK appears nearly flawless from back line to front. Meanwhile KIF, clearly outgunned, defends stoically and occasionally gets a half chance in a counterattack, led by their fast front runner Pavlina Scasna. But it’s only a matter of time before UIK scores. It happens, finally, in the 32nd minute, when Marta takes the ball down the left side and shoots from somewhere between the top of the box and the 11 meter mark—a great, authoritative goal that rips into the opposite side netting. 1–0 UIK. Six minutes later, as UIK’s goalkeeper Sofia Lundgren is running sprints in her own box out of boredom and a desire to keep warm, UIK’s lead is doubled from a corner kick crap goal that appears to skid off the writhing mass of players packed into the KIF box. I couldn’t really see who scored at the time, but Marta is eventually credited. 2–0 UIK.

The Gates of Gammliavallen, complete with team minivan

Halftime, and time for a description of the environs and a well-lit picture for a change. Gammliavallen is on the northern edge of downtown Umeå, nestled just south of a tree-covered hillside; up the hill is a park-like museum campus, and one gets a pretty decent view of the stadium from the Västerbottens Ski Museum. Gammliavallen is larger and more modern than Kristineberg IP in Stockholm, complete with comfortless narrow fold-down seats with arm rests, and serious-faced ushers that actually bounce some kids who try to sneak into the upper section. The pitch has a new artificial field turf surface, which seems logical at this latitude. Nevertheless, it caused a tempest earlier this year when European soccer’s governing body UEFA refused to sanction the turf. Is it a coincidence that the lab analyses, ostensibly needed to test the turf’s suitability, were bungled by a supposedly neutral Dutch firm, when Dutch side Saestum was next to play at Gammliavallen in the UEFA Women’s Cup? Hmmmm.

The ski run down the hill into Gammliavallen from the museum

Meanwhile, halftime entertainment is provided by four men who race each other on the track around the pitch, running backwards. The crowd clearly wants to see blood, and cheers every time one of them stumbles. All cross the line in the end, and medals are handed out to everyone except the poor guy who finished fourth.

UIK corner kick

Second verse, same as the first, as the ball spends most of the rest of its evening in KIF’s defensive half, with occasional excursions into UIK’s half. KIF’s keeper is kept busy, and she actually has a pretty good night, managing to the keep the score down as UIK continues to snipe and poach. More comic relief is provided in the 69th minute as UIK tries to sub in Elaine for Lisa Dahlqvist, but something displeases the referee, and the change takes several minutes.

She may be a great player, but she also runs with scissors

The situation is rectified by (who else?) Marta, who comes running from the bench with a pair of scissors to cut off Elaine’s apparently inappropriate bracelet.

Shortly thereafter, KIF’s keeper has the ball but inexplicably throws it right to Marta’s feet; Marta then equally inexplicably drives her subsequent shot so hard and high that it goes right out of the stadium into the parking lot. As the attendance is announced at 2078, I suddenly think that I understand some of the crowd chanting—it sounds like they’re yelling “U–I–K,” only (aha!) they’re doing it in Swedish, so it sounds like “oo–ee–kah” not “you–eye–kay.’ Either that or they’re cheering for someone named Ulrika. In the 76th minute, Marta takes a corner kick that is clearly intended to bend into the goal, but it goes a little high. UIK’s star forward Hanna Ljungberg, who has replaced Lise Klaveness up front, gets a good run on a through ball, but the KIF keeper gets to it just in time. The game is definitely slowing down now—the KIF defense is exhausted, and when Ljungberg takes the ball to their corner to waste some time, the KIF players more or less leave her there unmolested. UIK is not done though. Two more hard shots are turned away by KIF’s keeper, but on an 88th minute corner kick, the KIF keeper comes to punch it out. The clearance is not good enough and the ball bounces to UIK’s playmaker Anna Sjöström, who is near the goal line and puts it away easily. 3–0 UIK. The crowd starts clapping in unison as the game goes into injury time. KIF’s keeper makes one last great save in the 93rd minute, but it was offsides anyway and the game ends 11 seconds later.

Yes, yes, you’re the best—can we go home now please?

With this victory, it becomes a mathematical impossibility for UIK to do anything other than win the league championship, even though there are four games yet to go. I cheer and clap along with the rest of the crowd, having been thoroughly entertained for 90+ minutes, as “We Are the Champions” starts blaring from the stadium speakers and the rest of UIK’s team and staff mobs the field, hugging and jumping around as the TV cameras move in. The ground crew sets off fireworks. Too bad for those of us in the second deck, because we’re directly under the stadium roof and can’t see any of it. KIF is waiting wearily for UIK to calm down, so that they can all shake hands and call it a night. I briefly consider hanging around to see what the postgame scene is like, but there are hundreds of fans mobbing the sidelines by the tunnel, it’s cold and late, and I have an early flight out tomorrow morning, so I abandon any notions of autograph seeking.

Television coverage later that night shows highlights of the game, and features post-game interviews with several of the players. Everyone interviewed looks and sounds genuinely happy, as if there had been some doubt about the outcome of the season, which is somehow endearing. As a fan of Djurgården/Älvsjö, I should despise UIK on principle, but I cannot—everyone I met associated with them, from fans to support staff was friendly, and it was a real treat to see UIK play.

A couple weeks before, upon hearing that I was going up to Umeå, a wise man had said to me “Umeå is a very small town.” The town is not really all that small, but the airport sure is. When you land in Umeå, the plane gets to the end of the runway, then does a 180 degree turn on the same strip to taxi back to the main building. There is a single waiting area serving what is ambitiously described as two gates. As I sat there the next morning, stupid and blinking on account of the hour, I looked up automatically at a small group that has just come in… and thought, “Huh, that bag looks like it’s got the Swedish national team emblem on it. Huh, the woman carrying it looks a lot like Karolina Westberg. And her friend there looks a lot like Anna Sjöström. That’s funny...” Before long, six UIK players were standing around a small table not ten feet from where I was sitting. Now I am aware that bugging famous people in Sweden is tacky, but I'm not Swedish, and if I had not asked for their autographs I would have regretted it for the rest of my life. So I did, after congratulating them of course. They were gracious, if a little glassy eyed (did I mention it was early?), passing my program amongst them. I thanked them and scurried back to my seat, red-faced and triumphant.

By the time we land at Arlanda, I have had a couple hours to think about it and I am now perfectly horrified with my behavior. Well, at least I won’t see any of them again, I console myself, as they are certain to get off the plane and out of the gate quicker than I will. Perversely, once we land, I keep running into them in various places as we all mill around in the arrival hall. I feel like a complete jackass, but take each opportunity to redeem myself by pretending they don’t exist. My resolve to ignore them is broken once, but only when common courtesy requires that I perform a small favor for one. “Oh!” she says. “Thank you. I am so tired.” Which makes me feel a little better.

I wish those slackers from Umeå would finish their snacks and get down here…

Eventually I manage to get out of there, passing for one final time all the UIK players now safely ensconced in a snack bar. I head downstairs toward baggage claim and the departure hall, where temptation rears its head again... the rest of the Swedish women's national soccer team is standing around in a circle, right at the bottom of the escalator. My jaw drops. What on earth is going on here? I had forgotten that later this week is a world cup qualifying game against the Czech Republic— doubtless all the players are assembling here from different parts of the country to fly down for the game in Växjö. This time I master my impulse for hero worship, and I am content just to take a picture from afar.

Credits: Joe Scott (design and snaps), Jonas Dagson (logos), och dandal.webblogg.se (fact checking). Thanks, hagabo!
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