It was a mid-week match for Elfsborg. Sunday, but still an Allsvenskan routine between the impressive away win against Molde in the playoff to the European Championship and the return match against the Norwegians on Thursday.
For U21 national team player Ahmed Qasem, it flowed extra well in front of this year's largest audience in Borås, 13,533.
First, Qasem played a pass back to Michael Baidoo's 1-0 goal. Then, he hung highest and nodded forward to Emil Holten. Elfsborg's new Dane lobbed in his first Allsvenskan goal in his second match, ice-cold. And finally, Ahmed Qasem picked up a rebound and scored 3-0.
I feel strong and fast, and it's fun to score and help the team. If I don't score, I fight hard anyway, he says.
"We can do anything"
When Ahmed Qasem is asked which is Sweden's best football team right now, the answer comes quickly:
I think Elfsborg. We have good form. We have a whole unit right now. We can keep the ball, we can counter, we can defend, we can do anything. And we also have Isak Pettersson in goal, which also helps us.
Oscar Hiljemark took over as coach in June. Since then, the team has gone unbeaten through seven matches in the European Championship qualifiers. In Allsvenskan, Elfsborg has won five matches and only lost one, against Djurgården four weeks ago.
Unfortunately, we've lost a match. The Djurgården loss still irritates me, says Oscar Hiljemark, and continues:
But I'm both proud and impressed that we manage to look like we do. We have a team where the players do everything they can to improve each other. It will always be in my book that the team comes before the individual, and they've done it extremely well.
"Couldn't get worse"
IFK Göteborg isn't working as well. The team has only one win in eight Allsvenskan matches since Stefan Billborn came to Kamratgården.
When we went into halftime, we felt that it couldn't get worse. But in the second half, I think there were even more technical mistakes. We ended up on the wrong side when we defended. Three against one, we still chose to kick a long ball in panic. It was a lot of that. The second half wasn't good.
Göteborg didn't have a single shot on goal during the first 86 minutes.
But in the 87th minute, substitute Gustaf Norlin suddenly scored 3-1 with his left foot in Isak Pettersson's left corner.
Of Blåvitt's seven summer signings, four started against Elfsborg.
Danish striker Nikolai Baden went straight into the starting lineup after two training sessions at Kamratgården. He left the pitch after just over an hour without having accomplished anything significant. But he wasn't alone in that.
