Yesterday afternoon I was back at Tele2 Arena covering Hammarby’s match against Helsingborg. I had missed Hammarby’s home premiere match at the start of the week, so I was looking forward to covering this game. It was a gorgeous day in Stockholm but that did not stop Hammarby from drawing 20,516 supporters to watch them completely crush Helsingborg.
Hammarby came into this match following a 1-1 draw in their season opener against Östersunds FK and 4-1 loss away to IF Elfsborg in the midweek match. Helsingborg came into the match with a nearly identical record, having drawn their first match 1-1 to Gefle IF and having lost the midweek fixture 1-3 to Örebro SK. Going off of that I felt that maybe Helsingborg would walk away with a win or a draw. So I set myself up to have Hammarby attacking towards me in the first half and then Helsingborg in the second.
Boy was I wrong.
Helsingborg came out strong and took the lead after just four minutes when Carl Johansson header found the back of the net. Their lead would not last long and two minutes later Erik Israelsson made it 1-1. It would not be his only goal of the afternoon. After 20 minutes Israelsson struck again and gave Hammarby the lead. Helsingborg’s coach Henrik Larsson tried to give his team a spark by substituting Johan Mårtensson, who was a fault on their second goal, but it did little to change their fate.
In the second half Hammarby went on and ran away with the match. Hammarby forward Alex made it 3-1. Måns Söderqvist came on and made 4-1. Finally Erik Israelsson closed out his hat trick and made it 5-1.
After the match Helsingborg’s players went to their traveling supporters to apologize for the performance. But things got ugly quickly as the fans were in not in a forgiving mood. Helsingborg forward Jordan Larsson did not take kindly and reacted angrily. The situation eventually ended with coach Henrik Larsson taking himself directly under the fans and speaking with them for a few minutes before leaving out of frustration.
Thanks for stoping by!