Helsingborg. Different worlds – as has often happened in the last 25 years.
But original HIF player Matthias Lindstrom isn’t jealous of MFF.
– HIF is a great club. Usually the big clubs come back, one way or another, the HIF coach said before tonight’s derby.
Skåne doesn’t seem big enough for either of them.
2010 fierce gold battle, when Helsingborg65 points was just enough behind the silver Malmo FF, is the exception. Otherwise, MFF is usually on ice when HIF is at its peak and vice versa.
When HIF 1999 won its first gold in 58 years, MFF was knocked out after 62 consecutive seasons at Allsvenskan.
When MFF won gold in 2004, HIF only finished 10th, the worst position since returning to Allsvenskan in 1993.
When the MFF began dominating Allsvenskan again, reaching the Champions League for two years in a row, the HIF heavyweight race began. In the last four MFF gold medals, HIF either left Allsvenskan or was in Superettan.
While MFF has more money than any club in Allsvenskan, HIF struggles with its finances.
There were different paths.
Tonight in Malmö, the first derby in two years and the first in nearly three years is awaited.
We asked how hard it is to be a HIF member when there is such a difference Matthias Lindstroma Helsingborg native who came to HIF as a young player and who is now the head coach with Alvaro Santos.
There is a difference in the table. No doubt about it. It’s a cliché, I know, but we have nothing to lose. We go to win. Derby Derby. We should be humble before the task but not respect them. Being at the top and we’re at the bottom, we’re moving on to something positive. We will show them.
But after all, it’s only been 11 years since I participated and won the gold medal in Sweden with HIF?
– There were different paths.
Yes, how do you feel?
– do not Cry over spilled milk. We have to make sure we come back because Malmö will probably stay there. We’ll go back there to that cream shelf. But it should take the time it takes.
Can you see that you are competing and competing with Malmö for the foreseeable future?
– Well, for the stage. We start on Monday.
But as a club too?
– HIF is a great club. Now we are not a big team. But we are a big club in terms of interests, circumstances and everything around us. So I’m convinced of that. The big clubs usually come back, one way or another and sooner or later. But I can’t answer when.
Aren’t you jealous of MFF?
– No, I won’t, he smiles. The only thing on my mind as a HIF player – no matter if I’m a player, coach or fan – is to beat Malmö. Then you have to arrange ideas on how to do it. My brain activity doesn’t go any further now.
Victory in the fourteenth derby
Lindstrom himself has not played in the derby since 2015, the same year he stopped playing.
His derby result has been as weak as HIF in the last ten years. After gold in 2011, Helsingborg won only one of the fourteen Alsvenskan derby and managed to cross three times.
– But the club needs a derby. Everyone fights for it.
He finds it difficult to arrange a derby match against MFF.
– What always pops up for me when it comes to derbies is when I ran and tackled Guillermo Molins completely unnecessary once. Completely absurd. The ball was not close. It was a clear penalty and expulsion but the referee did not see it. I always have to defend it: “Why did you do that?” I don’t know.
Otherwise, the most boring derby memory emerges.
The spectator who ran and walked on Hanson’s bar. It was very boring.
This was the sponsorship change in 2011 in Malmö. The match was stopped and the box won 3-0.
– Until then, that match was in the top three with the highest tempo played in Allsvenskan. It’s unfortunate that it ended like this, says Lindstrom.