Sweden went through a minor decline at the end of the 1970s. It was mot visible at the 1978 World Cup – at club level it was different: Malmo FF achieved the biggset success ever of a Swedish club at the same time. The problem was peculiar and unlike any other country: since Swedish clubs were never relly strong, they were pretty much the same. The crisis was visible in the national team and international transfers: the great players of the first half of the 1970s aged, but there were no new stars coming. Transitional period of changing generations. 1980 was perhaps the turning point – the next generation was taking charge, but it was till too young to make really strong impression. Tiny signs defined the moment: Malmo FF changed their coach and employed foreign players, as if stating that locals were not good enough. And the team stpped back a bit, becoming a second fiddle. In the same time IFK Goteborg was rising, but was not dominant force yet. On the surface, Swedish football looked the same, though – like Denmark, ups and downs were common, for there were no big clubs dominating the scene. Perhaps IFK Sundsvall captures Swedish football best:
Domestic squad, not a single recognizable name, thus similar to almost any other Swedish team. They finished 7th in 1980 – right in the middle of the table, with 26 points of 26 matches. It would have been possible to finish higher, it would have been possible to finish lower – depending to the momentary form not only of the squad, but also depending on the form of the other clubs. Anonymous team. But not so bad compared to some more familiar names…
Second Division winners were at least well known names:
Örgryte IS (Goteborg), the oldest club in the country, and
AIK (Stockholm). A testimony for the strength of the Swedish clubs – ‘big’ names struggled in Second division when little known clubs played relatively well in top flight. But these two managed to go up rather quickly.
There was little drama at the bottom of First Division – two teams were obviously bellow the class of the league.
Mjällby AIF were last with 11 points.
Landskrona BoIS ended with 6 points more than poor Mjällby AIF, but they also had 4 points less than the nearest teams above them. 13th place was there and that was the second relegation spot. At 12th place finished Djurgardens IF and 11th – Atvidabergs FF. Gone were the years when these two clubs were among the best. If Djurgardens IF was moving up and down, as most Swedish clubs did depending on momentary form, Atvidabergs FF was just fading away, going further and further down, and permanently.
At the end, what really mattered was the top of the league. Four clubs were clearly better than the rest and contested the title.
IF Brage finsihed 4th with 33 points. Strong season for one of the traditionally lesser clubs For some reason the magazine which published their picture credited Brage with bronze medals, but even without them it was great season for the boys. Brage rarely finished that high and earned a spot in the UEFA Cup.
IFK Goteborg finished 3rd. The club had rather mediocre decade, but now were going up. Few young promising players were in the squad – the next generation of great Swedish players: Glenn Hysen, Dan Corneliusson, Olle Nordin, Tord Holmgren. Still too young for success, but talented enough to move Goteborg up the ladder. Similarly young was their coach – Sven-Goran Eriksson. This was the team for the future, going up, but not yet at its peak.
Malmo FF finished 2nd with 35 points – one more than IFK Goteborg. To a point, this was the club going down. The best team of the 1970s was unable to win the title. It was not real decline, but inevitable changing of generations. It looked like Malmo was staying among the best just on inertia and there was the big risk of sinking unless a new team was build quick enough.
With Malmo over the hill and Goteborg not at its peak yet, another club took advantage.
Östers IF won the championship in 1978, which was more or less a surprize, but they were best in 1980 too. Not supreme, but just a bit better than their opponents. They lost only 2 games this season and finished with 37 points – 2 more than Malmo FF, 4 more than Brage. As is often the case of not so great champions, they depended on defense – the best in the league – which helped squirrel point here, point there, and at the end – more than anybody else. But the champions also had few of the next generation stars: Tomas Ravelli, Peter Stromberg, Andreas Ravelli, Hakan Arvidson. Two foreigners aleso helped: the Finnish national team player Peter Utriainen and one of solid Icelandic players, who impressed Europe in the 1980s – Teitur Thordarson (who eventually became well respected coach in the early 21st century). Their young coach Bosse Johansson was instrumental and rising – with time, he was to coach the national teams of Iceland and Denmark. May be not a great team at big scale, but these years were perhaps the strongest period in the history of the club – second title in three years, and not the last one either.