Oh what can it mean?

A daydream believer he is, our Zlatan. And a homecoming king.

A Swedish journalist just dubbed Zlatan "the boy who was condemned to walk his life in circles". An elegant way of putting it.  There is something very predestined about him.  Wherever he goes, he wins the national title.  Wherever he goes, he fails to win the Champions League.  And wherever he goes, he will always come back to where he just were.  Here's the story of Zlatan:

2001: leaves Malmö for Ajax, but claims that one day he will play for Inter.
2004: leaves Ajax for Juve
Autumn 2004: paired with Ajax in the Champions League group stage
2006: leaves Juve for Inter
Since Juve has been relegated, it takes a year before he gets a new re-union in "il derby d'Italia".
2009: leaves Inter for Barca with the motivation that he wants to win the Champions League
Autumn 2009: Paired with Inter in the Champions League group stage, and in the spring the two team face each other again in the seminfinal. Inter go on to win the whole tournament.
2010: leaves Barca for Milan
Back to the city where he became the most shining star in Serie A, but playing for the rival team. And oh, this is what happens four minutes into his first derby for Milan. Plus:
Autumn 2010: is paired with his old team Ajax and his old coach Mourinho in the Champions League group stage.
Autumn 2011: First, the biggest homecoming of them all.  Then: paired with Barcelona (now Champions again) in the Champions League group stage.  Camp Nou may not respond in the same way.

Great Balls of Fire II

Time for the Champions League draw.

First, to all Swedes that are depressed over Malmö not qualifying: be careful what you wish for. Even though Malmö convinced at home, they were utterly thrashed away to a team that will be ranked as one of the worst in the group stage.  Imagine what would happen if Malmö got there. The squad is performing as a mid-table team in Sweden. I think we need a team that at least is the best in the country to represent us if we are ever to have a team in the Champions League again.

Example: Let's say Malmö would have qualified and would have been drawn against a mid-ranked team from all all seeding groups. That would mean a group consisting of, say, Bayern Munich, Benfica and Manchester City. Good luck.

Now Malmö will play in Europa League: the play offs are played tonight but let's say that if the big teams go through (and some of them are in serious trouble, an average group would consist of Sporting Lisbon, Celtic and Dinamo Bucharest. Tough, but possible. Swedbank Stadium will be similarly full, and Malmö will feel that they are there to move to the next level, not to act as a sand bag.

Now to the upcoming draw. I will not attempt to guess what UEFA will do to get the most exciting draw, but I note that my Milan had all reasons in the world to support Udinese last night. Not just because Serie A is slipping in the rankings, but also because Arsenal's qualification pushed Milan down to the group of second seeds.

Which means that Milan could face a group of Barca, Milan, Manchester City and Dortmund, for example. Best possible draw now would be Arsenal, Bate Borisov (what a night they had. Winning away to Sturm Graz and at the same time have UEFA declaring that Trabzonspor will replace Fenerhahce - pushing Bate Borisov up to the third seeds) and Otelul Galati.

Here are all the teams. Let's analyse more after the draw this afternoon.

Manchester Utd

Barcelona

Chelsea

Bayern

Arsenal

Real Madrid

Porto

Inter

Milan

Lyon

Shaktar

Valencia

Benfica

Villareal

CSKA Moscow

Marseille

Zenit

Ajax

Leverkusen

Olympiakos

Manchester City

Lille

Basel

Bate Borisov

Dortmund

Napoli

Dinamo Zagreb

Apoel

Trabz

Genk

Plzen

Otelul Galati

Blue skies for Malmö

The best results by Swedish teams in Europe on this side of the Millenium before this Tuesday? Swedish league football has been a sad story in these years, so you will not be very impressed.  Just wanted to illustrate that Malmö FF's 1-0 win at Ibrox last night was quite spectacular.  Where do we place it? Seems to me we have to go back to Helsingborg's run in the Champions League 2000 to find anything similar.  A good sign, it is about time we have a Swedish team in the Champions League.  I hope they go through.

Here's my top 10 (Örebro's performance against Sarajevo nowhere near)
Helsingborg-Inter 1-0 (Champions League third qualifying round 2000)
Inter-Helsingborg 0-0 (Champions League third qualifying round 2000)
Bayern Munchen-Helsingborg 0-0 (Champions League group stage 2000)
Galatasaray-Helsingborg 2-3 (UEFA Cup group stage 2007)
Sporting Lisbon-Halmstad 2-3 (after extra time, UEFA Cup first round 2005)
Halmstad-Benfica 2-1 (UEFA Cup first round 2000)
Juventus-Djurgården 2-2 (Champions League third qualifying round 2004)
Benfica-Halmstad 2-2 (UEFA Cup first round 2000)
Braga-Elfsborg 1-2 (Europa League 3rd qualifying round 2009)
Feyenoord-Kalmar FF 0-1 (UEFA Cup first round 2008, but kicked out 2-1 on aggregate)