The star in a big interview before returning in SHE
pocket. At 33, she has now completed her first day at her first real job.
Meanwhile, Isabel Goldin plays and will lift the entire league.
Meet the biggest Swedish handball star of the 21st century in a big interview before heading back to SHE.
did last week Isabel Golden His first day at his first “real” job – 33 years old.
nervously?
– Yes Yes! I have no idea… I know I know handball. But she says this job is about more than just knowing handball.
Even when it was clear that the best Swedish female handball player ever on the women’s team would break her contract with Vipers Kristiansand in Norway and move to Sweden to play for Lugi, it was clear that she would also start working on the side at the club.
Gulldén will be responsible for developing players on the youth side – reducing the step from youth to elite, simply honing an already strong nursery so that more talent reaches the club’s elite team.
– I’m already ready for this. It will be fun to see if you can do something else.
So when, like ten hours a week at school when she was playing at Sävehof, there has been a complete focus on handball since Gulldén graduated from high school.
This interview was conducted over lunch at a restaurant on the square in Loma, a five-minute bike ride from the newly renovated villa near the sea where she lives with her husband Linus and her son, Lias, 3 years old.
He, Lias, is about to enter Kindergarten, and Linus, a former elite player (goalkeeper) who “cracked extra” as an agent while on the move with “Bella” in Europe, gets a “real” job as an economist at the Nerbes Agricultural University.
Villa, regular jobs, kindergarten lessons, life puzzles…
…Can you say you’re really entering adulthood now, Bella?
– yes I do.
Goldin spurs skeptics
But of course she will play handball.
Gulldén is the biggest and most deserved star to have played in the Swedish League and a poster name for the entire SHE.
She signed two three-year contracts with Lugi, one as a player and the other as a development manager.
– Now at 40-50 percent, but the idea is that I’ll go up 100 percent next year.
She is, of course, talking about the job in the “office”.
As a player, of course, that applies 100 per cent – right from the start.
I know you should answer it’s fine, but what about the motive?
– but that he is Good! The first is that there are a lot of people who are skeptical about it and that makes me even more excited. Then it’s easier to motivate yourself when you feel like you’re starting to get in shape. I had problems with my feet last October and then all this with the news of my sister’s cancer. Normally I would always be able to run additional cycles on my own, but I couldn’t. It was mostly about surviving training and matches. This summer I was in Ystad and Jesper fixed my foot (Lindgren, physiotherapist). I now feel like I can get in better shape and then become more motivated. I will also have to take on more responsibility in the field than I have done in recent years. Then I should be better. You don’t want to be bad either… I won’t be the way I was in 2014-16. But neither was I when I won the Champions League last spring, Goldin smiled.
With all due respect to your Lugi teammates, but the truth is that you didn’t have a worse environment after you were 17, you were promoted to the first team Sävehof, which was the best in Sweden at the time – how do you see that?
Luigi chose to invest in young talent. We have six strong players and then there are many young players in the team. But this is incredible. They want tips and advice and feel like they are being listened to. We may not win SM gold, but we hope to find stability.
Gulldén bets as much as anyone else – that Lugi will fight for 3rd/4th place behind Sävehof above all, but also Höör and possibly Skuru.
– We hope to get as high as possible to avoid Sävehof entering the furthest point.
More fun workouts
Goldin was born in 1989. His old teammate Emma Furness (96) is Logi’s second oldest, followed by two players born in 1999. The rest are in the 2000s, most of whom were born in 2003.
Do you feel old sometimes?
– Yes a little. I don’t always participate in the conversation and I’m not in the Tik tok world. If you mention someone I played with when I joined the national team, they don’t know who it is, they’re very young (laughs).
Since Goldin went to Bucharest in 2015, she has belonged to clubs located at the highest peak in the world, which, with plenty of stars, fight for the Champions League title every year.
I think training, with a team full of young talents, will be different in Luigi than in Bucharest, Brest and Vipers?
– It’s more fun training here.
Really?!
Yes, there is a more developmental mindset and there is such momentum in everyone. I haven’t had this much training in many years. At other clubs, I was more focused on the small tactical details between all the matches and the trips.
Many of your current teammates must have grown up with you as a childhood idol?
– They have it. They went to see us playing for the national team in Lund and one of them showed a picture where you stand with me and the others in the national team. But now I am part of this team and I only see myself. Then, of course, I feel a certain responsibility to spread my knowledge.
What should you do to maintain your level in a weaker environment?
– I need to take more responsibility myself. I need to move forward with goals, which I did in 2014-2016 but then lost after pregnancy. I must lead the way, achieve goals, and return to this killing instinct.
But can’t you get frustrated, say, in training when I think the 19-year-old SHE player isn’t as good as the world players you’ve surrounded before?
– No, not anyway. I’ve gotten frustrated with many guys over the years when, for example, they “enter” rather than “widen”. You have to stop and explain more now, and spend more time afterwards than when you played Nora Mork who immediately understood when she made the wrong choice. I never get frustrated if someone throws the ball away as long as you do your best, but the worst thing for me is when you don’t fight and run home and then it doesn’t matter if you’re 19 or 40 years old. You have to be enthusiastic and always want to win.
Hanging out with retirees at the gym
Loma, which has a population of just over 10,000, is not a handball resort.
No one seems to notice Gulldén in the well-attended restaurant.
Were you recognized here?
– Not much. But gym retirees now understand. It’s them and I there in the morning. They asked me if I was a special athlete when they saw me jumping the box. I replied, “Yes, yes, I am.” Then he recognized one of them and spread there.
The main reason Gulldén broke the contract in Norway and moved to Lomma and Skåne was Rebecca’s little sister’s cancer announcement last winter.
On August 3, Rebecca received news that she is cancer-free.
– it was amazing. Because of the pandemic, Rebecca has only been allowed to bring one person with her to hospital visits. It was my mother’s habit. They called us as usual when they were there and then my dad and I sat outside in the car in the parking lot and were on the speakerphone. It was so amazing when they told me she would never go back there again. It is relief and liberation of the patient and people cried with tears of joy. Then we celebrated in the restaurant here and spent the whole day together.
So you could have already stayed in Norway and fulfilled your contract – did you regret moving home?
– “Now you can go back,” Rebecka said almost immediately. But no, I don’t regret it at all. He still feels right about everything. We thought for a while: “Is it time now? Is it time now?”. So we took a year, which should have actually been two years, in Norway and it turned out great. We made friends for life and I got the gold medal in the Champions League. But then I finished it. Linus didn’t get a job there either and needed to get a start on his career.
– We are doing very well here at Lund, Skåne and with the team. It is great to spend every day with our families.
Bella says the family is happy to be a little older.
We want another child. He will come when he comes. At the moment we are very happy to have a three year old who still doesn’t sleep much at night. No, but it’s beautiful. But he doesn’t care at all about balls. He appears and is a real theatrical monkey. Linus seems to have been the same when he was little while I’ve been finding balls everywhere since I learned to walk. Lias doesn’t need to play handball, but we think it’s important to play team sports and whatever she brings, says Gulldén before riding her bike, and justifying herself for forgetting her bike helmet and going home.