Last day at work today. It felt good and I feel well about my work. I reflect upon a job well done. Three months went by so fast.

I leave Sweden for a year of studies in Austria in one week. This is my last week in Sweden for a while. It's the biggest challenge that has aroused in my life this far, and I am enthusiastic about stepping up to it. It is going to be different and interesting at the same time. I careful not to expect too much from this year though. I don't want to be disappointed if it becomes evident that life in Sweden is better than life in Austria.


Whatever. Sweden enter the qualifications for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa tomorrow. An away game against Albania is waiting and I am optimistic about the result. Zlatan is back and Henrik Larsson is the new capitano. I am not convinced that Sweden will make it all the way through the qualification campaign, but I sincerely hope that I am wrong.


It's Friday night and I am planning to just relax and to do nothing. Maybe I'll watch a movie later. I have no urge to go out tonight. I just want to spend my last days in peace and quiet. I want to spend some quality time with friends and family.
Tomorrow I'll start looking for a suitcase...

The day after

First of all, it feels much better now, almost 24 hours later. However, this does not mean that it feels good!

These players must quit the Swedish national team. There are three more names that I'd like to add (Henrik Larsson, Fredrik Ljungberg and Anders Svensson) to this exclusive list but because of their qualities and their status, I think it's better to keep 'em for the time being. Marcus Allbäck has already stated that he quits the national team. Svensson has hinted that he might have played his last international game and Alexandersson has said that he'll continue if (God forbid) his services are requsted.

In a couple of months we'll enter a qualification campaign for the world cup finals in South Africa, 2010. We must accept that it's time to give other players the chance to represent the country. This will most probably mean that we won't qualify. Our group is tough and several players in the squad are not as experienced as they should be considering their age. I'd love to see Henrik Larsson play for Sweden the coming games, but would that really be the best thing to do in the long run?

By the way, Germany just downed Portugal with 3-2.

More sunny (and inspiring) Tuesdays please

This has been a long but inspiring day. I had the great luck to see the sun today as well.

It began with studies, a lecture, followed by another lecture and more studying. The day was rounded off with a long meeting. It's been fair.

The second lecture today was actually more of a talkshow kind of thing where one of Sweden's most successful businessmen was present and where two students openly asked him questions about himself and his work. It was very inspiring to hear about his life and his business, an how he had made himself a fortune.

The same guy is also the chairman of the Swedish football club Hammarby IF from Stockholm. We were allowed to ask questions during the lecture, and I had to ask about the current situation with the goalies in Hammarby. They bought one of Sweden's best goalkeepers (Rami Shaaban) before this season, but after three games of something they benched him and threw their reserve goalie (Kristoffer Björklund) out on the pitch. The reserve goalie proved to be better than we all had expected, and excelled his rival. For example, he managed to deny Henrik Larsson several goals in the game between Hammarby and Helsingborg last week, and on top of that he saved a penalty kick from Larsson in the same game.

Anyway, the chairman said himself that they had bought one of northern Europe's best goalkeepers and that they regarded him as their number one, no matter what. But they had to be consequent and fair now that the reserve goalie was performing this well.

As I said earlier, this was a very interesting and inspiring person, and I told him that I practically am the neighbor of one their players. And of course, I also told him that I am a die hard supporter of one of their greatest (if not the greatest of all time) antagonists. Despite all the trouble AIK is having right now.

What defines one's nationality?

The first week is now over. It's Friday night but that doesn't really mean anything. January will be one of those months when too many things attract my attention and keep me from seeing how time passes.

I've had a cool day though. I have studied a little but I haven't exactly been working my ass off. I've been distracted by some shit at PFDC lately. Here's the story.

There's this Iranian footballer in the Swedish league, Behrang Safari who quickly has become one of the better players on his position. He was recently awarded with a berth in the Swedish national team in some upcoming friendlies in North America. Unfortunately, Behrang was interrogated at the airport where the Swedish national team was changing flights. He was stuck there for 2 hours and missed the plane with the other players on it. It's usually common that Iranians are "interviewed" like this after 9/11 and all the other problems going on in the Mid East. So far so good.


Here's the annoying thing. Behrang said in an interview (that I myself did with him last summer!) that he would join the national team that calls him up first. That means that if the officials at the Iranian football federation (which is a mess at the moment with a new president) would have called Behrang up for one of the many worthless friendlies against Arab teams, he would most likely accept that invitation and become an Iranian international player. Behrang was never called up by Iran, and I completely understand him when he accepted the invite from Sweden's headcoach Lars Lagerbäck. I mean who would turn down an invitation from a national team in order to wait for another one (that might not even come...)? It's stupid!
Now, people are going around calling Behrang all different kinds of things. Traitor, Swede (as if that is something negative) Iran hater and other nasty things. The funny thing here is that these kids (99 % of them) don't even live inside Iran. Most of them can't even read or write Farsi! Now they're preaching all kinds of stupid things about patriotism, nationalism and pride. Well, spare us please! Have you ever heard of Zlatan Ibrahimovic before?


Henrik Larsson? Zinedine Zidane (one of the biggest players of all time)?


It upsets me that people don't see this in a distanced and nuanced way. Some people see the world in only black and white.
Enough about that.

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I have an exam tomorrow afternoon. The coming weeks are as I mentioned earlier, pretty tanked. But what the fuck, it's not the first time. I've had the wonderful opportunity to enjoy inhuman stress during the past 6 months, so I'll be a big boy and suck it up.

Good night.