Blauwvit's coach: "Not realistic with gold fight"

Against the background of last year, few people had expected the blue-and-white transformation during the start of this season. Eight laps into the series, IFK Göteborg had scored the most goals and shadowed Malmö FF in the table top. In the offensive, it was a lot about the new star shot Benjamin Nygren and the reborn Patrik "Paka" Karlsson-Lagemyr. In the defense, Carl Starfelt was described as Allsvenskan's best center back by Asbaghi. But just like last year, Blåvitt had to rebuild - and this fall none of the players mentioned.

- Then (last year) it came as a consequence more that we had players whose contracts expired, and not that we wanted to get rid of everyone, says Asbaghi ​​and goes through this year's window:

- This year, more has happened as a consequence of success. This was what we wanted from the start. Didn't get rid of Nygren necessarily, but we wanted to get development on our players and either keep them or sell expensive. Now Nygren went for a record price, Starfelt is the most expensive mid-hill sold from Blåvitt ever.

He describes Blåvitt who went into the fall as a more offensively balanced team. Hosam Aiesh has been brought in from Östersund and Tobias Sana has returned, but in addition to the sales they have also suffered two fatal injuries. First Karlsson-Lagemyr tore off the cross band and when 18-year-old talent Rasmus Wikström would make his first start in the Allsvenskan, the bad luck came again.

- It took extremely hard. It is a young player with fantastic mentality. In the absence of starting matches week in and week out, he has supported his older colleagues in a fantastic way that few players do at that age, he says and continues:

- Then it goes four minutes and he pulls the cross band. It is clear that it feels miserable.

There are 33 points left to play and Blåvitt has nine points up to the series lead. But the club will take its first gold medal since 2007 is unlikely.

- That we should be in a gold battle is not realistic. That we are going to fight for Europe… so there we are fewer points away at the same time, there are quite a few good teams fighting for them and those teams have not had to rebuild. They have supplemented their troops while we have been in a position where we have replaced almost half the starting eleven due to injuries and sales. In addition, it has not been a stated goal for us from the beginning either so there is no need to change.

Do you think there are expectations from your supporters to fix a European place anyway?

- Of course it is a natural reaction when we are still up there, it would be strange otherwise. I hope they feel that way, says Allsvenskan's youngest coach and continues:

- But that's one thing you hope for, then it's another thing if it doesn't happen, how do you react? If you react with being really cursed, then it may not be perfectly logical considering what our plan with the whole season has been.

Long term is an expensive currency in big clubs. The challenge will be to be able to gain acceptance for the fall in order to harvest the more in the future.

- It is clear that you understand yourself that you can win more matches in the short term by retaining players, but I am driven as much as everyone else in the club by the fact that we are going to build the club, more than anything else. And I've been mandated to think long-term, which makes it easier for me to always be able to put it long-term first, ”says the 34-year-old.

Tonight, IFK Göteborg faces Helsingborg. In the event of a victory, a blue-and-white form has still the European spot within reach of a few points, but it is not a priority goal. The club may as well have abandoned a European place through summer sales - to get more out of the future.

- We are not looking to go all in because we have a European feel or a close feeling this year. We had been able to spend all the money we had received on Nygren and Starfelt, and we had been able to bring together a powerful squad that could have fought the top places for the final round, but we have chosen to work in a different way, says Asbaghi ​​and concludes:

- We are not looking to fight for a top spot in 2019 or a top spot in 2020. We are IFK Gothenburg, we are such a big club that we should join and fight for these places every year. And there I see us in a few years. Where we are the club that fights for it every year, some years we succeed, some years we do not succeed, but we are up there at the top every year.