Underdog stories are always inspirational. They prove that everything and anything is possible. This can occur in any facet of life. It can result in a big outcome. An unknown person/thing can instantly become famous as a result. This trend continues with a Swedish village winning the league.
In a small Swedish fishing village, there is a tiny soccer stadium tucked away beside a campsite and the shores of the Baltic Sea. It is the type of place where the land is so flat that the horizon sits just above the trees and the sky stretches so wide it seems possible to touch.
Here, in this unassuming spot, is where one of the greatest ever stories in European football unfolded this season. No one expected Mjällby AIF, a team that plays in a village of around 1 500 inhabitants, to contend for the Swedish league. After all, its budget is a fraction of some of Sweden’s biggest teams.
Yet, somehow, on Monday, the team completed one of the sport’s biggest shocks and won the Allsvenskan – the top tier of Swedish football.
"Its 1 500 inhabitants in the village where they play and you’re just flabbergasted when you see this elite football going on," Erik Hadzic – a reporter for TV4 Fotbollskanalen, who has covered the team for the last five years – said.
"Mjällby winning the Swedish championship is arguably the biggest sensation in the history of the Swedish league." The tiny team from Hällevik hasn't just won the league, either. It has absolutely blown away the competition.
Having lost just one game all season, it is currently 11 points ahead of nearest challenger Hammarby in second and with its 2-0 win over IFK Göteborg; Mjällby assured the title with three games remaining.
Win even one of its remaining fixtures – or draw two – and Mjällby will set a new record for the most points ever amassed by an Allsvenskan team, beating the record set by Swedish giant, Malmö FF, in 2010 and matched by AIK in 2018.
"Malmö is the richest club in Sweden and Mjällby has something like 15% of their budget, so everyone believed that Malmö would go on and win their third title in a row before this season started,” explained Hadzic.
Even when Mjällby enjoyed a strong start to the season, the team still wasn’t seen as a title contender. It was only after defeating Malmö in August that, "all of a sudden, it felt like, 'Yeah, they could really make it'," Hadzic added.
European football is no stranger to David and Goliath stories in recent years. Leicester City, Bayer Leverkusen and Montpellier have all shocked their respective leagues to claim unlikely titles. Even those stories didn't begin a decade prior, stranded in the third tier and fighting bankruptcy.
"You can’t really compare because Leicester still had really wealthy owners,” Olof Lundh, a Swedish sports journalist, said. "I have a hard time finding equivalent achievements, especially considering they’re from this really small municipality."
"They shouldn’t even be in the top division," he added. "Just being in the top division is impressive, and being in the top half of the top division is super impressive and then winning the title, it’s incredible."
The obvious question, then, is: how exactly did this happen? How is it possible for a team from a village approximately 1/250th the size of Malmö to fight off Sweden’s elite and have arguably the best season in the nation’s history?
Under chairman, Magnus Emeus, a local businessman who returned to his hometown after working abroad, Mjällby has followed a philosophy whereby "you’re supposed to be able to measure everything," says Lundh.
"I think they’ve just been really smart and worked really hard,” adds Hadzic. “They’ve been tremendously good in their scouting. They’ve found some good players, they’re giving players a second chance and they’ve just blossomed at Mjällby."
"When your town is so small that everyone knows everyone else – Mjällby’s head coach is a school principal and its scout is a postman – your weaknesses can become your biggest strengths. "It’s a team based on very high team spirit," Hadzic explained. "Some of the players live in the same flat."
"It’s something I never thought would happen in my life. I’m so incredibly grateful for this group," striker, Jacob Bergstrom, said on Monday, according to Reuters. "We showed that a collective can take you incredibly far, we have a lot of players who give everything for Mjällby, it’s fantastic."
"He’s like the heart and soul of the club,” said Hadzic. “He’s been a player, a manager, and now he’s a sporting director. Somehow, his soul embodies the whole club. He’s willing to do so much for Mjällby and willing to work so hard for them."
At the same time, luck has played its part in Mjällby’s triumph. The club has taken advantage of several of the league’s biggest teams, including Malmö, underperforming and all beating each other, Lund pointed out.
"I have a hard time putting it into words, I can honestly say. It’s so incredibly powerful," Mjällby head coach, Anders Torstensson said after Monday’s win, per Reuters. "Together with the team, we have kept it away from us, the pressure, the speculations and what is possible and not possible. It’s fantastic. Redeeming to stand here as Swedish champions with little bloody Mjällby. It’s unreal."
Mjallby were established in 1939 by the merging of two local teams and have spent much of the subsequent 86 years outside the Swedish top flight.
A coastal area closely tied with fishing and agriculture, the people of Solvesborg municipality are hard working and proud. They show up in numbers at their modest 6 500 capacity Strandvallen home in the small town of Hallevik, with average attendances more than four times the size of the local population.
It's by the sea but a far cry from the vast arenas of Stockholm and Malmo as Mjallby try to make up for lost time.
After a joint-best finish of fifth in the 2024 Allsvenskan, they have won 20 of their 27 league games this season and tasted defeat just once. Since May 2024, they have also gone 22 home league matches unbeaten.
Mjallby also beat title rivals Hammarby, currently in second place, home and away this season, despite having one of the smallest turnovers and budgets in the division. They clinched the Allsvenskan title with a 2-0 win at IFK Gothenburg on Monday.
"When I arrived at the club before the 2023 season I saw pretty fast that we had a lot of potential, but I thought that the mental perspective in the club held us back," 35-year-old defender, Tom Pettersson, said.
"It's something that we've been working on for a few years now. So it doesn't feel like we don't belong up there, top of the table, because we've been talking about this for a few years, that we have to stop using old excuses."
"We can still win things, even though we don't have a lot of money, even though we're a small village and all that. The group of players in the locker room, they're amazing. Everyone brings in energy every day, there's no egos at all, so we have a lot of fun as well."
Team-mate, Elliot Stroud, added, "It's difficult to take it all in, it's happened so fast." The 23-year-old midfielder, Mjallby's top goal contributor in the league with nine goals and five assists, is thriving in a high energy, high pressing attacking system, something only recently introduced at the club.
"When people thought of Mjallby, they thought of long balls, long throws. We've always been strong defensively but last season we brought in a new assistant coach who brought lots of great offensive ideas," added Stroud.
That coach is Karl Marius Aksum. He had never previously coached at senior level when he joined Mjallby in January 2024, but his academic work and ideas won over manager Anders Torstensson who continues to manage the team despite a leukemia diagnosis later that year.
The Norwegian, who regularly shares tactical insights on social media, has a PhD in visual perception in elite football. It has a particular focus on scanning, which refers to the active head movements players make before receiving the ball to gather information from their surroundings.
"It's a critical skill in modern football because the movements of the players are faster and the press is better, so you have to update your surroundings all the time," Aksum said. "It's especially important for players in the middle of the pitch, because they could have important information 360 degrees around them."
He worked on the players' scanning to make them "better passers and better players both offensively and defensively" and was given the freedom to implement other principles to revolutionise their attacking play.
A team that once relied heavily on crosses and set-pieces now plays out from the back to keep possession and moves up the pitch as a unit. "I trust my game model 100%, I knew it would work at this level. The players responded very, very well," he said.
Making a title charge with an average player age of 24 and just three international players is impressive but it's no accident.
Rewind to 2016 and Mjallby were struggling in the third tier and close to bankruptcy. Victory on the final day spared them what would have been a fatal relegation to the fourth tier but serious changes were needed off the field.
Swedish clubs are owned by fans because of the 50+1 rule, meaning rich owners can't bankroll teams to success. Mjallby's transformation over the last decade has been organic and driven by chairman, Magnus Emeus.
The businessman changed the mindset regarding finance, reducing the club's running costs and making the operation more efficient.
"It starts by controlling the game from the back. We start by creating [numerical] superiorities at the back, man v man. We are the team in Sweden that plays the most passes in our own third of the pitch because we want to control the game. We don't want chaos, we want control."
Aksum favours "game specific" training over drills like rondos, which focus on a specific skill without recreating real match conditions. No Playstation coaching, we provide players with principles but never the exact solutions. They have to make the decisions," he added.
With 49 goals from 16 different scorers in 27 games this season, Mjallby are the division's second highest scorers and have the fourth-highest average possession (54.3%) - up from 47.5% three years ago.
"We took control of our costs, we have one of the lowest turnovers in the league, but we also have one of the lowest costs," Mjallby chief executive, Jacob Lennartsson, said. "For every Swedish krona that leaves this club, we ask the question: Is this making us better? Football is so much about love and passion, but in the end it's so important that you have a good economy."
Mjallby began to focus on developing young players and selling them as a way to survive. Defender, Colin Rosler - son of former Manchester City striker Uwe - was sold for £950 000 just 18 months after joining on a free transfer. Midfielder, Nicklas Rojkjaer - described by Aksum as the best player he has ever worked with - joined Danish side, Nordsjaelland, in July for about £1.4m.
The stars of this season like Gambian forward, Abdoulie Manneh, centre-backs, Axel Noren and Abdullah Iqbal and Swedish midfielder, Ludwig Malachowski Thorell, seem destined for big moves in the future. Older players like captain, Jesper Gustavsson - who played in that decisive final-day game nine years ago - and striker Jacob Bergstrom, both 30, have provided invaluable experience.
Such a strategy appears at odds with challenging for honours, but Lennartsson believes a balance can be found.
"The problem is when you start to win games, players attract bigger clubs. The balance is to make them understand that it's about what is best for the club," he said. "I understand the players' perspective. At Mjallby they will get a good education and play for one of the best teams in Sweden, but they will not get the best money. No player that has ever asked to leave Mjallby stays for a long time afterwards. Maybe a half or full season, but they get their dream move in the end."
The club is getting stronger year on year. Since 2016, their annual turnover has grown from minus £350,000 to £2.3m, while equity has increased vastly too.
While continuing to grow, what has emerged from the near-ruins of 2016 is a club that remains rooted in a tight-knit community. Where else would several members of a title-challenging squad all live in the same building and regularly bump into fans while doing their grocery shopping?
"If we don't have anything to do we will have a barbecue, cook out, hang out," revealed Stroud. "Those bonds build off the pitch and follow on the pitch too. That's the key. We are all so close and that's special at a fairly small club."
Mjallby's official supporters' association, Sillastrybarna, has grown from less than 30 hardcore fans to at least 500, all while cultivating a positive, anti-racist and anti-sexist culture in the stands. Not to be outdone by their counterparts in Stockholm, the choreographies and displays produced by the Mjallby Tifo group get more elaborate with each passing season.
For those who have witnessed their journey, the emotions of this season are hard to comprehend. "The greatest feeling is sharing this moment with my mates who have been standing by my side all along this journey," said Sillastrybarna chairman, Patrik Thorell.
"Mjallby is bigger than football, it is a big family. Seeing these people full of joy every weekend, and to share this feeling with them, it really is one of the best feelings in the world."
Mjallby have played on the site of their Strandvallen Stadium since 1939. After watching his team play at Mjallby, one opposition supporter wrote on social media: "It should be impossible to play football here - nobody lives here, there is one shop and only animals.
"You turn right on a road where the world ends and the sea starts, and there is Strandvallen. It's amazing they play elite football there, but they do." Those words have been adopted by the club as both a source of motivation and grounding.
"We are not that big, we need to keep our feet on the ground," added Lennartsson. "We use this to keep our expectations in check."
The future looks bright where the world ends and the sea starts.
It's quite clear that this club has achieved a lot. They've risen from obscurity to the top of the mountain. The kind of unity that is displayed by this team is very unique. Most teams are dis-jointed and only come together for training and playing matches.
Their future seems bright. It looks like they can now achieve anything with the momentum they currently possess. Playing in the Champions League next season will be exciting for everyone involved. A new challenge awaits them.