Thin troops worry about the favorites in the damall swan

- Our thin squad is our Achilles heel, says Rosengård's Caroline Seger.

- It would have been better with flying switches, says Gothenburg's Emma Berglund.

The latter is followed by a laugh, but in the joke there is a worry. For how will teams like Gothenburg, currently with only 15 outside players in the A-squad, cope with this season?

- There is probably no team that will have an easy journey, says Emma Berglund.

- The season will begin as a very long championship final game. And everyone who has been in such a thing knows that everyone will not be able to run full weeks with 90-minute matches.

Damallsvenskan starts on June 27. The 22 rounds will then be ripped off in four and a half months, with two shorter national team breaks as the only breaks. It will be a real test for already thin troops.

- There is not much room left for the margin of error, says Linköping's coach Olof Unogård.

He has only 16 injury-free A-team players available right now, two of which are goalkeepers. Being able to barely fill the replacement bench can be a problem during the season. Another not quite incredible scenario of having to take out players who should really rest.

- This is where you definitely do not want to end up. If you play the same eleven games out and match in, it will surely be a sportier chance to succeed. But the players are incredibly tired. And if you rotate too much, the athletic will not be clockwise. It will be the big challenge for the clubs this year, says Unogård.

Most teams in the series wrestle with thin troops. Gothenburg and Rosengård, the two major gold favorites for the season, have only 17 available players (goalkeepers included) in the respective A-team squad at the moment.

Gothenburg has gone on three heavy breaks during the preseason: regular team captain Beata Kollmats has injured the crossband, midfield star Elin Rubensson is pregnant and the experienced outside backs Catrine Johansson announced the other day that she is leaving.

Emma Berglund, who takes over the captaincy tie in Kollmat's absence, believes that this season will be extra important for leaders and medical teams to say stop, otherwise you risk burning out players.

- In the past, it may have been more the player's own responsibility to tell when it gets too much, but you would rather not do that. Now you may have to look at match minutes more than exactly how you feel, to reduce the risks. Because there are many players who will end up in that situation - who should rest a little extra just that match? It will require a little fingertip feeling, ”says Berglund.

Gothenburg hopes to recruit a couple of foreign players at national team level before the premiere. Otherwise, you can supplement the match teams with F19 players, if you should at all benefit from the Swedish Football Association increasing the maximum number of changes per game from three to five.

The reigning champion team Rosengård also expects to use its F19 talents to fill its bench.

- We have a very good squad but you can't play football with just 15 outside players. And especially not when it becomes such an intense schedule. We have a thin squad and this is undoubtedly our Achilles' heel, says Rosengårds team captain Caroline Seger.

- It will be a year where we will receive trials that you have never been to before as a football player.