Daniel Sundgren helped arrange Maccabi Haifa’s resounding victory over Juventus in the Champions League yesterday.
The Swedish team is now looking forward to more shocks.
– It’s great to be able to beat Juventus, he says.
Maccabi Haifa received a tough draw after the team reached the group stage of the UEFA Champions League. And after losing against Paris Saint-Germain, Benfica and Juventus, he waited for the second leg against the big Italian club yesterday.
Then the team took off and won 2-0 against Juventus. Swedish national team Daniel SundgrenWho played the whole match for Haifa is very happy with the victory.
– It feels very good, of course. Above all, it was nice to be able to give our fans this win. It’s not unusual for Maccabi Haifa to win the Champions League if we look back in time.
Above all, not against a team like Juventus. Juventus is Juventus, and for my part I feel satisfied that I can beat Juventus.
Sundgren also believed the win was important on another level.
For me, it was like taking revenge on the match with the national team the last time we faced Serbia. Juventus had some players we met back then.
– Including Vlahovic and Kostik, he says.
What would you say is the reason why things have been going so well for you as a team and for you personally?
If I do my part, I enjoy football and life. It’s socially good here and the family is having a great time. Then it gets easier on the football field as well. Then we have a team with great cohesion, where everyone works hard for each other. We are doing well as a group.
What kind of feedback did you get from fans?
The best you can get, of course. You are now king here after a victory like this. Then it can spin quickly as well. But a victory like this, like the victory over Juventus, was a huge success.
Did you think about this when you signed with Maccabi Hevia?
– No, maybe not that. I knew it was a good team to come to, otherwise I wouldn’t have picked them. But maybe you didn’t think we’d be on the same points as Juventus in the Champions League group stage after four rounds. Now we are seriously fighting for third place.
You’ve got a new nickname too, I see. Where did “Sundogan” come from?
– I think he’s alluding to Ilkay Gündogan at Manchester City. I first heard it from some very young fans who had a hard time saying Sundgren. Then it happened that they shouted at me “Sondogan”.
– Then it became a thing on Instagram after that. I’ve seen a lot of people write it now.
What about the nickname?
– Love her. It’s a beautiful thing, Sundgren says with a laugh.
You were in the national team before, how did you feel about the last game you started against Serbia and then got slammed against Slovenia?
– Whether or not you get ripped off, you can take Jean with you. But maybe she was small, Jan said. Serbia away from home is a very difficult match, they beat Portugal for example. Then to take them off a line of defense where we barely played together and miss important pieces, it may not be that easy and it doesn’t give a fair picture of what we can actually do.
– But of course we have to do better, don’t talk about it and it was disappointing that we didn’t win the match.
What do you say about your group’s draw for next year’s EC qualifiers?
Belgium will be very difficult. But at the same time, we showed that we can beat any team if we do our work together. Then we can beat the big countries. Austria will also be difficult. They are a little unknown on paper but hard to beat.
