Madesjö IF 10-0 Rödeby AIF
Swedish regional division 4 (women)
Monday 17 August, 18:45 kick-off
Madesjövallen, Nybro
Crowd: 49
Most clubs have both men's and women's teams but Madesjö IF are an example of a club with only teams for girls and women. Madesjö is on the west side of the town of Nybro, where I was last Friday to see Pukeberg. Madesjö used to be a village in its own right until becomning part of Nybro in 1965. It is also home to the second longest wooden building in the country, the church stables where horses were kept for churchgoers back in the 19th century.
Madesjö IF were formed in 1957 and originally had a variety of sports to offer the locals, including football, ice-hockey, gymnastics, table tennis and bowling. Today only the football section remains. Women's football started in 1971 and the men's team was disbanded in 2018 when the club decided to focus exclusively on women's and girls' football. Today they have two senior teams, the first team in division 4 and the reserves in division 5, plus teams for girls from 6-7 years and up. Madesjö are at present second in their league with quite a few convincing victories behind them. They play in all-red.
Their opponents today Rödeby AIF, from near Karlskrona in the south-east corner of the country, are tucked in behind them in third place so this game is important for both teams. An interesting fact about Rödeby is that the women's team played in the top division in 1978-79. Rödeby's colours are blue and white.
The ground
Madesjövallen is a well-kept and attractive ground with trees on three sides, like so many grounds here in Sweden. The main side has changing rooms, club house, kiosk and a small wooden stand. On the opposite side there are the dugouts and a few benches for spectators who don't want the sun in their eyes. At both ends there are training pitches and as the game began there were lots of girls and trainers busy training behind both goals. There are no floodlights.
The sun was shining at the start but there were very ominous dark clouds overhead - thankfully the rain didn't come. Most of the crowd were probably family and friends and the atmosphere is pleasnat and relaxed.
The game
It's a while since I saw a team score double figures and Madesjö demolished their opponents with an impressive display. They work well together and were solid in all departments, especially up front. The goal cavalcade started after 11 minutes when Amelia Malmquist shot into the top left corner of the goal and it was mostly one-way traffic for the rest of the game. After 25 minutes, my player of the match Emelie Joelsson scored the first of her six goals when she broke free in the box and fired home for 2-0. Joelsson was fast, strong and always alert up front and fully deserved her double hattrick (I'm sure I've never seen anyone doing that before). She could easily have scored another three. The third goal was an own goal when a shot from Alva Rosén (who was also fast and skilful up front) was deflected by a defender. The fourth and fifth goals followed before the break, both from solo runs.
After the break Rödinge tried to limit the damage and had a couple of good chances, one of which was an unusual case of an indirect free kick in the box when the Madesjö keeper picked up a pass-back. The free kick was cleared however and before long Madesjö resumed the goalfest. Joelsson jinked past a defender and shot high into the net for number six and ten minutes later she scored again after good work on the left by Rosén. Three more goals rolled in before the referee blew the final whistle much to the relief of the visitors. There were few consolations for Rödinge, a few chances and some nice saves from the hard-pressed keeper but they will want to forget this game and regroup for their next match.
Madesjö look like a team that should be going up at the end of the season, certainly if they play like this every week. I enjoyed my evening though I always feel sorry for teams who get beaten so badly.
No comments:
Post a Comment