Malmo. The Witch’s Cauldron has been an important weapon in the MFF European Qualifiers over the years.
But for tonight’s Europa League playoff against Sevaspor, it looks like it will only be half full.
– I am very confident that the audience will be our twelfth man, says coach Andreas Jorgson.
Malmo FFThe qualifying matches that the team played at home on the field have been feared by opponents over the years.
You might remember how Salzburg coach Adi Hütter called the scene a “witch’s cauldron” before the UEFA Champions League qualifiers in 2015, something Aji Haredy quickly picked up and loved talking about the ‘witch’s cauldron’ in Malmö.
Since then, many coaches and players from bigger clubs, such as Thomas Tuchel at Chelsea, have praised the pressure and atmosphere at the Elida stadium.
The MFF has highlighted in social media that with the fans behind them, they have passed five straight playoff matches and entered the group stage of either the Champions League or the Europa League (when they missed the Granada match in 2020, no fans were allowed in due to the pandemic).
– The feeling now is that the summer football temperature in Malmö is rising. We are now warming up against an opponent where we really feel we have to measure ourselves against players who have played at a very high level. It brings out the best in us as a team and usually brings out the best in our stands and that’s when we have to create an electric atmosphere where we get an extra 5-10 per cent from the stands,” coach Andreas Jorgson says before the meeting. With Sivasspor in the Europa League match in Malmö tonight.
Only 10,000 tickets sold
Until losing at home to Zalgeres in the Champions League qualifiers at the end of July this year, FIFA had only lost one European home qualifier in ten years (against Granada mentioned above).
The question now is whether the MFF has lost a little of its home charm in the European qualifiers.
Because yesterday, one day before the match, MFF sold 10,000 tickets out of 20,500 tickets.
– This puts the audience at between 12,000 and 14,000, says Peter Suhlmeyer, MFF’s press director.
Georgeson:
Obviously, if you’ve been to a lot of Champions League qualifiers and experienced great moments, the Europa League is a step down.
“It would be loud if they were in a good mood.”
So we are not talking about crowded evenings like Vardar, Salzburg, Sparta Prague and Celtic a few years ago. Or even the roughly 17,000 who came to see the fiasco against Zalgiris recently.
On the other hand, the crowd figure is equal to what the MFF drew in the European League play-off against Bnei Yehuda in 2019 (13956) and Midtjylland the previous year (11487).
Georgeson does not seem concerned about the atmosphere against the Turks tonight.
– We’ve had some really great matches where we had 12-14000 because everyone has the responsibility to set the mood from the start of the warm-up to the end of the game. If we land there, I’m pretty sure the audience will be our 12th man. If we can spice it up a little more, it’s of course more fun, he says and continues:
From a sporting perspective, it doesn’t really matter if we’re 13,000 or 18,000 because what they do is they’re here and they move the team forward. It would be loud if they were in the right mood.
