Hedvig Lindahl stops reading all the dung people write.
Above all else, she should smile at this text.
It is easier to describe its sheer grandeur, then.
Ten years ago it was Hedwig Lindahl Broken, bitter and stressed. Damage to the blister and cruciate ligament. She had already been criticized during the 2007 and 2011 World Cups, but the tone intensified after the Olympic quarter-final against France. Not only did people care about her being a badass, but that she might also die.
She didn’t have a lot of friends in particular at all, so dark thoughts lingered and bounced around in the constantly running brain. They knew the career was over.
Lindahl was a model student at the school, and a scholar who never missed school. The short and wild period when she smoked pot and rode the moped, only convinced her that animals and sports were more interesting, and catching balls was just the thing she wanted.
But in 2012 the show ended.
Knead him like a third goalkeeper
The publicity of the early ’90s was one thunderstorm, as open newspaper comment sections allowed every frustrated keyboard warrior to throw the next thunderbolt. Few were as easy to meet as Hedwig Lindahl. If women’s football is as ridiculous as a cow’s trot – haha - how ridiculous is a goalkeeper who allowed a long shot – huh – saved by a man in the Fifth Division?!
I listened to ten interviews and a summer’s conversation with the goalkeeper from Gropptorps IF without fully understanding where I found the strength to think again. But I am sure of this: that she was able to continue is one of the most important decisions of the Swedish national football team in the twenty-first century. It is directly crucial for future medals.
Until the spring of 2013, she guarded Kristianstad’s goal at the Philsvenskan premiere. At home EC that same summer, she joined as third goalkeeper. For WC two years later, she was recruited by Chelsea and given the top spot at Blågult, which has continued ever since. Zećira Mušovi developed, Jennifer Falk stepped up, Emma Holmgren signed Leon, but no one even asked who would guard the Swedish cage in the tournament. That place once belonged to a woman with an elaborate club career, but her penalty shootout became the single biggest reason for winning a silver medal at the Olympics in 2016 and 2021.
Today it is gurgling again.
It’s over – it should be over
Against England, Lindahl is passive on Bronze with a 2-0 header, wide-legged on Russo’s heel 3-0 and fumbled at Kirby’s shot 4-0. It’s an extra one, it failed, like the entire Swedish team. But flashes are rarely looking for midfielders. In the morning goalkeepers are trending on Twitter and articles about them make the news headlines. She gets the most love and sympathy, she writes herself, but the stubborn crowd is still so angry that they can’t keep the darkness of tar inside but have to pass it on to her.
Now the career at Blågult is over again, just as it was ten years ago.
It must be so.
Hedvig Lindahl plays for Allsvenskan. It’s 40 in the spring and the younger names are feeling even more excited. When she listened to interviews after graduation, she honestly wondered if last year’s Tokyo shouldn’t have said goodbye.
But then that clairvoyance returns. The one that so many others lack. Lindahl notes that she was not selected for the national team based on past merits or for spreading positive feedback. Four consecutive captains of the national team for more than two decades have analyzed and evaluated all Swedish goalkeepers and have always come up with the same answer, which is also the reason for writing this column. Not fawning, not coddling, not defending women’s football or trying to get it to act properly against England.
But because Hedvig Lindahl is the best we have. They often excel and sometimes are blunders, but regardless, no one else could have done it better. No one saved more balls in the 2011 World Cup and no one took us to the EC Final in 2022. And if Peter Gerhardsson reaches the same result in the future, you will consider continuing to compete.
It is unemotional and logical thinking.
But most of all he is brave. It is another sign that she does not allow herself to be dominated by headlines or comments, but by the sheer strength that makes him one of the greatest goalkeepers in Swedish football ever.
