Sweden’s most boring person might just be the man to IGNITE Aberdeen
ABERDEEN fans have good reason to reflect upon November 12 last year with a profound sense of horror.
Their side were routed 6-0 at Celtic Park that afternoon with four goals coming after the 77th minute. Barry Robson limped on as manager but he was on borrowed time from that point onwards.
Although no one present in the visiting section could possibly have known it at the time, events elsewhere that day are likely to have had a huge bearing on where the club now goes from here.
For Elfsborg and their manager Jimmy Thelin, hopes of winning the Swedish title hinged upon them avoiding defeat away at Malmo.
A failure to beat lowly Degefors the previous week had handed Malmo the chance of a reprieve after their shock loss to Hacken. And it was not one they were about to pass up.
On an extraordinary final day, which saw the second half delayed for an hour due to pyrotechnics setting off a fire alarm, the conversion of a dubious secondhalf penalty saw Malmo take the title on goal difference.
We shall never know for sure, of course, what a different outcome would have meant for the immediate future of Thelin. There had been talk of Sunderland and Swansea and even the Sweden job beforehand.
Did they look elsewhere to fill those vacancies purely because Thelin’s side came up so agonisingly short? It certainly seemed that way. In any event, all the speculation surrounding one of Sweden’s rising managers suddenly went quiet with Thelin left to reflect in peace about what might have been.
Aberdeen will be grateful that it did. After a prolonged pursuit, the 46-year-old has been confirmed as their next manager from June. Back in Sweden, the fact that no other club beat them to the punch remains something of a mystery.
Thelin may have come within a hair’s breadth of the title last year but no one in his homeland considers him to be a nearly man of the game.
On the contrary, his reputation is that of a boss who gets far more out of players and teams than he’s entitled to. He boasts an enviable record in the transfer market. The fact that his success across 18 years in management has come by playing high-tempo, high-pressing football is another gold star in his jotter.
There are, naturally, no guarantees when it comes to appointing football managers. But after going through four in the three years since Derek McInnes departed, chairman Dave Cormack appears to have finally unearthed one whose experience, track record and style of play are deserving of the usual fanfare.
THElIN belongs to that sizeable crop of modernday bosses who had no real playing career to speak of. Born in the small southern city of Jonkoping, he turned out for IF Hagapojkarna for eight years in the lower leagues. Yet it would only be when his playing days were over that his true talent became apparent.
Appointed manager at newlyformed FC ljungarum in 2006, he won the Swedish Sixth Division with just one defeat in his debut season. He’d claim another title in 2008 before being offered a youth coach job with Jonkopings Sodra.
Having risen through the ranks there, Thelin was elevated to the top job at short notice at the outset of the 2014 campaign.
The side finished fourth in his first season, their best finish since 1976, with promotion back to the top flight for the first time in 46 years coming a year later.
‘When Jimmy took charge, we were a club with almost no resources,’ revealed his brother and captain back then, Tommy. ‘We couldn’t afford spies and analysts. So, Jimmy became a kind of football-mad vampire — he stayed up half the night studying players and opponents.
‘He did things differently from the start — for example, we didn’t have a first-choice goalkeeper. He decided who would be in goals based on the training performances of the week.
‘He also stressed a lot that we don’t call substitutes just substitutes because they are decisive. And true enough, his substitutes decided many games.’
This innovative approach quickly drew admiring glances. At the start of 2018, Elfsborg made their move.
After an initial 12th-placed finish, they came eighth then second with the prize for giving winners Malmo a run for their money coming in the form of European qualification.
Although Elfsborg would finish fourth in 2021, they actually closed the points gap to Malmo — champions again — from nine to four. They regressed to sixth in 2022 but bounced back strongly last season only to lose out on goal difference.
Across six seasons, though, Thelin proved himself capable of fashioning sides that could trouble the top end of the table.
The loss of key players — an inevitable consequence of this success — did not inhibit him.
‘Every year, Elfsborg seem to lose and bring in a lot of players and they are always up there. That’s down to Jimmy,’ said Malmo manager Henrik Rydstrom.
‘On a tactical basis, I would say Elfsborg are the most consistent team in the country. I always found it amazing that Jimmy’s name was never really mentioned when it came to managing a really big club in Europe.’
SO, what should Aberdeen fans expect? For a start, purely in terms of Thelin’s personality, a pretty understated individual.
Described by one journalist last week as ‘Sweden’s most boring person’, he does not seek to make headlines. The SFA will be pleased to learn that hell will freeze over before he would comment on the performances of a referee, let alone confront one.
Said to be a decent and honest person with sound values who is devoted to his profession, Thelin prefers to let his work do his talking.
His preferred formation is 4-3-3 which folds into a compact 4-4-2 when defending. The focus is on hard work and concentration on the back foot, with triggers for presses to spark counterattacks. Once the ball has been won back, he demands a quick transition, with diagonal passes preceding shortened passes to try and penetrate the opposing defence.
There is not an obsession with possession. Elfsborg actually ranked 10th out of 16 in terms of that particular statistic last season. The emphasis is on using the ball effectively and efficiently once you have it.
It will be fascinating to see how Thelin gets to grips with a defence that’s lost 49 goals in 35 games this season.
Elfsborg were miserly in that department last year, conceding the fewest goals in the top flight (26) by following his instructions to the letter.
While Thelin prides himself on his ability to improve players on the training ground and mould them into a more effective unit, it is likely that he will need a significant overhaul of the squad before he can play the style of football he likes. That can take time.
But after so many false dawns and too many ill-conceived appointments, it does appear that there is a collective will at Pittodrie to grant him as much of that as he needs.