The frustration was palpable when Häcken stepped off Skytteholm’s artificial turf. The Häcken bench reacted strongly to a number of situations in the second half and despite the away team pushing up everything they had offensively, AIK could not get holes.
The match introduction was otherwise anything but crackling. Konya Plummer pushed Stina Blackstenius there in a duel after a quarter so she went downhill, which was the most remarkable thing from the beginning. The hedge behaved carelessly and accounted for several simple ball drops. It was different from the meeting between the teams last summer when it was 5-0 to Häcken after 25 minutes. That match ended 10-0.
Häcken then took over more and more but had a hard time creating enough goal chances. Blackstenius had Häcken’s best goal chances within three minutes, but failed to find the net. Blackstenius was clear that she was not happy with the first half.
– If there’s something we need to do better, it’s the ball tempo. We need to play past AIK’s team parts and we are not really doing that at the moment. There will be a lot of ball sideways. This means that we create too few chances to score, Blackstenius told SVT at half time.
AIK often threatened in depth and it was effective. Kaisa Collin forced Jennifer Falk out of the goal on a number of occasions when she was close to running free. Just Falk was close to making it twice with her feet, when she met pressing AIK players with her longer balls.
AIK has almost consistently had problems with the goal scorer this year. Only on three occasions has the team scored more than one goal in a match. In the beginning of the second half, however, AIK created two great chances. Rosa Kafaji turned in a dismal performance, however. Shortly afterwards, Collin was close to nodding in Caroline Murray’s post.
In the final stage, Häcken pressed a bit for a winning goal and hoped for a penalty, but the referee instead chose to blow for a free kick, which made the match end 0-0.
The hurdle thus now gives Rosengård a chance to celebrate Swedish Championship gold on Sunday afternoon. Häcken needed to win against AIK so that Rosengård could not take the Swedish Championship gold today. AIK in turn secured the contract this week when Växjö lost again.
AIK: Majasaari – Hallin, Plummer, Davison, Gisladottir – Murray, Santamäki, Hayashi, Danielsson, Kafaji – Collin.
The hedge: Falk – Rubensson, Gevitz, Kollmats, Ökvist – Karlernäs, Curmark – Rytting Kaneryd, Gejl Jensen, Larsen – Blackstenius.
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