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Management So (hypothetically) who replaces Ange then?
- Thread starter Shadydan
- Start date
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"Breaking news, Xavo, the former Barcelona coach, has signed a deal to become the new Chelsea manager"
4 years at Chelsea?
If there’s a positive outside the EL to come from Ange, it’s that the club is no longer a graveyard for coaches where you get sacked by a trigger happy chairman.
Coaches will look at the patience and support Ange got and see they will get time.
Think they'll stick with Enzo, should finish top 6, possibly top 5 and will win the Haribo cup.
They'll give him one more year
View: https://x.com/DiMarzio/status/1920537425744380085
Not been good with news to us for a while, but he is a Paratici mate, so…
Let’s hope so.
Yeah, De Zerbi has Conte vibes. The last thing Levy will want is another manager rant aimed at him in a presser.
Wouldn't surprise me if its de zerbi. Wouldn't mind but have reservations about his ego. Mind you poch will be waiting in 2026.
De Zerbi is a grade A cunt
I've been checking the Premier League candidates win % at their present clubs on their individual Wikipedia pages.
Iraola (39.29%),
Frank,(41.72%)
Silva (44.20%)
Glasner (45:61%)
Postecoglou (47.42%)
It's not consistent with this seasons league points with Iraola in the lead but the figures above include cup games I would have thought, as well as previous seasons.
Iraola (39.29%),
Frank,(41.72%)
Silva (44.20%)
Glasner (45:61%)
Postecoglou (47.42%)
It's not consistent with this seasons league points with Iraola in the lead but the figures above include cup games I would have thought, as well as previous seasons.
Last edited:
Glasner wouldn't surprise me and would leave palace for us like a shot. Did read somewhere we want a big time manager as next appointment. All speculation atm. Want to win europa league first.
He was appointed manager February 2024. so he's been there this season and about the months of last season.Is this Glasners second season? And he is in a cup final?
I really don't know who will replace Ange. But i think we need an analytical monster as Assistant Manager to replace Mason
This guy Karl Marius Aksum
"
He has written his own football bible of 500 pages.
He has identified the best playing system in football.
He wrote off Mjällby's captain Jesper Gustavsson the first time he saw him play.
He had an agreement with a Danish club this winter but was stopped.
Meet the tactician behind Mjällby's success - the football doctor Karl Marius Aksum.
Tactically, I think Hammarby is much more exciting than Malmö.
In late autumn 2023, Anders Torstensson and Mjällby AIF had decided to play more offensively in the upcoming season. One of the two assistant coaches, Stefan Ekstrand, was to be replaced, preferably with someone who could develop the attacking play. The defensive play was already one of the best in Allsvenskan (the Swedish top league).
The position was advertised, and they received 85 applications.
Seven were selected for interviews.
We said, as one of the last things, that "this doctor also has to be included," explains club manager Jacob Lennartsson.
The doctor didn't top the ranking after the interviews either, where they wanted to get to know the candidates a little better. But the doctor still became one of the four who were selected for the next step, where they had a week to analyze the home game against Halmstad from the past season. Mjällby had played perhaps their best offensive game but still lost.
The candidates were tasked with explaining how they would have approached the game to win, how they wanted to improve the attacking play, and how they would train to achieve that. They had 20 minutes to present their "solution."
That's when he blew us away. It was insanely good, and he was brutally honest, says Lennartsson.
For example, the doctor almost immediately dismissed "number 22" in central midfield.
"He shouldn't play. The only problem was that it was our captain Jesper Gustavsson, with whom we had just extended for five years," Lennartsson recalls with a smile.
The Norwegian got the job anyway, and that's why, 1.5 years later, we've settled down in the clubhouse (by the way, how many Allsvenskan clubs have a clubhouse in 2025?) with Karl Marius Aksum,
the "doctor" from Narvik in northern Norway.
And Jesper Gustavsson is still the linchpin in Maif's midfield.
Aksum wants to add some nuance to Lennartsson's recollection of the assessment of Gustavsson.
I said that he couldn't play the way he did in that match if we were going to play the way I wanted. Jeppe wasn't good enough at making himself available, had no scanning, and struggled a lot to turn the right way on one touch. It wasn't good enough. But I also said that it's easy to fix, says Aksum.
He actually condemned Mjällby's entire attacking play.
"What I saw was a brand of football that was far below what I believe in. There was a lot of 3-5-2 and very direct play – out with the ball on one wing and cross it in. That's actually a lot of what IFK Göteborg does today; they cross from all positions on the pitch as soon as they get the chance. But I know that type of football is on its way out because we know today that if you cross or play the ball into the box from positions closer to the penalty area, there's a much greater chance of scoring."
Aksum is called "the doctor" for a reason. He holds a PhD from the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, where he spent four years researching visual perception in elite football players.
"Bedridden for two years"
In the mid-2000s, the 35-year-old was a young talent back home in Narvik who dreamed of becoming a professional footballer. But then he was struck by chronic fatigue syndrome, the neurological disease ME/CFS, when he was 16.
I was basically bedridden for two years, except when I was at school. At that time, people didn't know if you could recover from it either, so it was very tough. But my dad found a training regimen in London that I followed, and then I got completely well. But the illness has shaped me as a person because I know how bad you can feel and how low you can get. That's why I don't tolerate players who don't do their best every day. Because you should be incredibly grateful that you get to have this as your job. It's a fantastic profession, and I'm grateful that I have the next best job, which is being a coach.
The bachelor's degree was followed by a master's in coaching and psychology, and then the aforementioned PhD in visual perception. Aksum spent just over ten years at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, all the time with the plan of becoming a coach at the highest level.
It's difficult to reach the top as a coach without having been a top player. Then you need to have something that sets you apart from other coaches. There aren't many top coaches who have a doctorate, and knowing that I might be the best in the world at scanning and perception gives me some weight when I talk to players.
Visual perception is more than just scanning.
It's also how you look at the ball and how you look at teammates and opponents. Simply put, how you use your vision to gather information on the pitch. It's something that is becoming increasingly important. If you're not good at scanning in today's football, especially if you play centrally, you have no chance.
Aksum resumed playing football, reached the third tier in Norway, and actually has more goals than games in his career. When he stopped playing in his early twenties due to some injury problems, he had already decided to become a coach. He had moved to Oslo right after finishing upper secondary school.
The Norwegian School of Sport Sciences in Oslo was the only place in Norway where you could get a bachelor's degree in football coaching. Already when I was 19, my goal was to become the best coach I could be. Or I probably actually wrote "the best coach in the world," and that's still my goal.
"This is my bible"
"I brought this in case there's anything you want to see or know more about," says Aksum, pointing to his laptop.
As it turns out, there is.
For nearly 15 years, Aksum has been collecting and structuring all his thoughts on football and how it should be played and trained in one document. It now consists of around 500 pages and is updated every week. The table of contents alone is 19 pages long.
This is my bible. It's everything from culture, I'm very interested in culture, to training setups, methodology, pedagogy... I mean, everything. The playing model itself is 200 pages.
If we look at the attacking play, it's structured into 28 main principles, 31 sub-principles, and 35 sub-sub-principles.
Identified the best playing system
Of the 28 main principles, Aksum introduced about half into Mjällby's game last year and a few more this year. It quickly took Maif's offensive play to new heights last season.
Aksum believes that the 3-2-4-1 system is the best.
I looked early on at the 27 most common playing systems in football and, after putting in an incredible number of hours, concluded as early as 2012-13 that 3-2-4-1 is the best for attacking football. At that time, no team played like that. A few years later, Brendan Rodgers started playing 3-2-4-1 at Liverpool, and that was the first time I saw it, even though it wasn't exactly as I had envisioned it. I got a little angry then because I was supposed to be the first one with it. In today's football, 3-2-4-1 is very popular. Chelsea won the Champions League in 2022 with it under Thomas Tuchel, and Bayer Leverkusen is the best at it. They play fantastic football.
Mjällby also naturally operates with a 3-2-4-1 nowadays.
It provides fantastic passing opportunities based on angles and so on.
But we don't get to see more than the preface, the table of contents, and a page about the attacking principles.
I'm transparent about most things, and when I was the coach for Odds U19 team in Norway, I posted almost every exercise on X. But this document, no one gets to see it. I'm keeping it to myself until I'm 70 and have retired. Then I'll release it as a book.
When Aksum was done in the academic world, he took over Odds U19 team and was given complete freedom to implement his ideas from "the bible." It was an immediate success, and after two seasons, he moved to Sweden, Allsvenskan, and Mjällby.
But Aksum, as you've realized by now, has bigger plans for his coaching career than being an assistant coach in Allsvenskan.
I see myself as a head coach. The club knows that too.
Had an agreement with a new club
Already in November, he still extended his contract with Mjällby until 2026, with an option for an extension until 2027.
This winter, he received an offer to become the head coach of a club in the Danish second tier that is investing heavily to get promoted to the Superliga.
Everything was basically done. I had spoken with the sporting director and the coach who was going to leave. But then my agent called and said that Mjällby didn't want to let me go. I was furious. I felt trapped. But then I sat down and talked to the club, and they explained their view of things. They really wanted to keep me and believed in what we're doing. Then I felt it was okay. I enjoy being in Mjällby a lot, and we have something exciting going on.
It's noticeable that "the doctor" enjoys being in Hällevik. He likes to talk at length about his football philosophy, life as a coach, and his relationship with the players.
He is clear that he has a main role in how Mjällby plays football.
I don't interfere with the team selection unless Anders (Torstensson, the head coach) asks me. But how we should play, our principles, that's my responsibility. I have the main responsibility for the attacking play and am involved in how we should defend.
He is also clear that he has a strong belief in what he does.
I know that this way of playing is the future. Just look at Brighton under Graham Potter and Roberto De Zerbi. It's very similar to what we do.
And speaking of the future, Aksum's long-term goal is clear.
I want to coach a big club in Europe. Absolutely. That's my goal.
When Aksum was to defend his doctoral thesis at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, he was given two weeks to explain "why football coaches' love for rondos must end."
Rondos? The square, the classic training exercise, is a type of rondo.
Rondos is a collective term for all possession exercises that only involve keeping the ball within the team. I thought my analysis was quite good and posted it as a thread on X. The thread received quite a bit of attention because the square is an exercise that most coaches, and not least players, love. Now everyone thinks I hate the square, but I don't. But I'm not a fan of it, and we never do regular rondos in our training sessions. The players, on the other hand, do the square in the warm-up, before we coaches come out, because they think it's so much fun.
All the years within the football academic world have given Aksum a large network of contacts. For example, he did his doctoral project on visual perception together with Woolwich, and he has made study visits to clubs such as Ajax, Feyenoord, Southampton, and Aston Villa.
The visit to Feyenoord in December 2022, right in the middle of their title-winning season with a certain Arne Slot as head coach, was special.
"On study visits like these, you usually only meet with the club's academy. But Arne Slot spent two days with me. I got to sit in on their coaching meetings, show how we trained, and I did an analysis of Feyenoord's players. He took me out for dinner, and we sat and discussed rondos for five hours because he was a big fan of rondos and knew I wasn't. He probably spent three of those five hours trying to convince me that it's a good exercise. He was fantastic. Here comes a researcher from Norway who coaches a Norwegian U19 team, and he wants to learn from me. I think that's extremely impressive. If you have that kind of view on knowledge, you'll go far."
Do you watch a lot of football?
Much less than before. Before I became a full-time coach, I could watch eight Premier League matches a week. I have my girlfriend with me from Norway, and I work so much. I'd rather watch our matches and clips over and over again. And I'd rather see a three-minute clip on X with something tactical than a whole match. That develops my understanding of football. My goal is that no one should know more about attacking play than I do. If someone does know more, I'll learn it. But I read a lot about football. I try to learn something new or extra every day.
Mjällby changed their playing style before last season, becoming a more playing team with significantly more possession than before. But they have continued to develop their attacking play this year and have scored the most goals of all teams after seven rounds.
Last year, we were very successful with our attacking play on the wings, where we overloaded and found nice combinations. Before this season, we have spent a lot of time developing the central combination play. If we get both right, we will be difficult to stop.
Can switch between many systems in a match
They have also worked a lot on the regaining press.
We tried to get better at it last year, but we weren't tough enough. We didn't manage to push the opponents low enough to do it well. We manage that better this year, and it's very difficult to counter-attack against us. And we have developed more variation in our game. The players are now very comfortable switching systems three or four times during a match.
A medium press is another factor behind Mjällby's success.
We have become much better at winning the ball higher up the pitch without overextending ourselves in the press. We have good collective defending, and everyone knows exactly what to do in the press. It's a lot about smartness and timing in the press. We have worked incredibly hard on that.
The fact that Mjällby is difficult to beat and has the best goal difference in Allsvenskan (+8) after seven rounds is clear evidence that Aksum's "football bible" and tactical knowledge have had a significant impact.
He naturally has ambitions to become a head coach eventually.
I had a good conversation with the club this winter, and they know that I want to take the next step. But I have no problem being an assistant coach in Mjällby. I enjoy it a lot, and I am given a lot of responsibility. It's a fantastic club with fantastic people. But I want to become a head coach. Preferably yesterday. But I have patience.
And who knows, in a few years, perhaps "football doctor" Karl Marius Aksum's "bible" will be available for purchase in bookstores.
A lot of teams press high, or they press low. But they have nothing in between. We believe very much in a medium press, and it's becoming increasingly common in international football. If the opponent manages to play past our high press, we don't drop all the way back to the penalty area; instead, we try to stay around the center circle and be compact there. This way, we don't give the opponents 60 meters just because they manage to play through the initial high press; they constantly have to work to push us lower and lower.
Who is best at the medium press?
Bayer Leverkusen is fantastic at it too, and we are very inspired by them. They have the same system as us in the medium press: 5-2-3. Liverpool can also be good at it, but they often use 4-2-4 in the medium press, which has become very popular.
Which Allsvenskan teams are good at it?
There are quite a few teams that use a medium press 100 percent of the time. Elfsborg was good at it last year after Oscar Hiljemark took over. Göteborg has been okay at it, Gais can be quite good. Hammarby is extreme with their high press but is also good at the medium press.
Aksum and Mjällby are also influenced by Atalanta's man-to-man defense.
This thing about going into a man-to-man defense has exploded in recent years. We see it all over Europe now, and in Norway, it has been big for a while. In Sweden, we have seen very little of it. We are playing more man-to-man this year than before, inspired by Atalanta, who are the best in the world at it.
Aksum praises the older guard in Mjällby's squad for how they have embraced the tactical innovations of the past 1.5 years: Tom Pettersson, Jesper Gustavsson, Jacob Bergström, Herman Johansson, Viktor Gustafson, and Alexander Johansson.
They have been extremely curious and interested in developing this way of playing. It would never have worked if they had said no. They have also had a fine individual development even though they are approaching, or have passed, 30.
Which teams are playing the best football right now?
I have never seen better attacking play than what PSG has now. Inter also has fantastic attacking play. There have been better teams like Manchester City and Barcelona, but that was perhaps because they had such extremely good players. PSG as a team is the rawest I've seen in terms of attacking play.
"Hammarby in a league of their own"
In Allsvenskan, Hammarby is in a league of their own. They are without a doubt the best team in Allsvenskan. The fact that we could beat them in a single match was very enjoyable, and we showed that we could compete with them. But the way they play, press, and attack is fantastic.
Very well coached!
What about Malmö?
Last year, they moved away a bit from this relational play, and I felt they played a lot of long balls, just sending it up to Isaac Kiese Thelin when they were pressed. Nothing new came from Malmö last year. The new thing in Swedish football has come from Hammarby. Tactically, I think Hammarby is much more exciting than Malmö.
Do you think Mjällby can win Allsvenskan this year?
No.
No?
No, I don't think so. Anything is possible, of course. But it's become a strange discussion now. If we had five wins and two draws in the middle of the season, no one would care. But just because we've done it at the start, we're suddenly a gold medal contender with 23 rounds left. If we look at the corresponding matches last year, we've only taken one more point this year.
On Sunday, you face AIK away in an early top-of-the-table clash. After that, both Djurgården and Hammarby await at 3Arena within eleven days.
These three matches will be our big test. Last year, we didn't win any of the matches in Stockholm. If we win one or two of them, we might end up higher in the standings than we did last year, says Aksum."
This guy Karl Marius Aksum
"
He has written his own football bible of 500 pages.
He has identified the best playing system in football.
He wrote off Mjällby's captain Jesper Gustavsson the first time he saw him play.
He had an agreement with a Danish club this winter but was stopped.
Meet the tactician behind Mjällby's success - the football doctor Karl Marius Aksum.
Tactically, I think Hammarby is much more exciting than Malmö.
In late autumn 2023, Anders Torstensson and Mjällby AIF had decided to play more offensively in the upcoming season. One of the two assistant coaches, Stefan Ekstrand, was to be replaced, preferably with someone who could develop the attacking play. The defensive play was already one of the best in Allsvenskan (the Swedish top league).
The position was advertised, and they received 85 applications.
Seven were selected for interviews.
We said, as one of the last things, that "this doctor also has to be included," explains club manager Jacob Lennartsson.
The doctor didn't top the ranking after the interviews either, where they wanted to get to know the candidates a little better. But the doctor still became one of the four who were selected for the next step, where they had a week to analyze the home game against Halmstad from the past season. Mjällby had played perhaps their best offensive game but still lost.
The candidates were tasked with explaining how they would have approached the game to win, how they wanted to improve the attacking play, and how they would train to achieve that. They had 20 minutes to present their "solution."
That's when he blew us away. It was insanely good, and he was brutally honest, says Lennartsson.
For example, the doctor almost immediately dismissed "number 22" in central midfield.
"He shouldn't play. The only problem was that it was our captain Jesper Gustavsson, with whom we had just extended for five years," Lennartsson recalls with a smile.
The Norwegian got the job anyway, and that's why, 1.5 years later, we've settled down in the clubhouse (by the way, how many Allsvenskan clubs have a clubhouse in 2025?) with Karl Marius Aksum,
the "doctor" from Narvik in northern Norway.
And Jesper Gustavsson is still the linchpin in Maif's midfield.
Aksum wants to add some nuance to Lennartsson's recollection of the assessment of Gustavsson.
I said that he couldn't play the way he did in that match if we were going to play the way I wanted. Jeppe wasn't good enough at making himself available, had no scanning, and struggled a lot to turn the right way on one touch. It wasn't good enough. But I also said that it's easy to fix, says Aksum.
He actually condemned Mjällby's entire attacking play.
"What I saw was a brand of football that was far below what I believe in. There was a lot of 3-5-2 and very direct play – out with the ball on one wing and cross it in. That's actually a lot of what IFK Göteborg does today; they cross from all positions on the pitch as soon as they get the chance. But I know that type of football is on its way out because we know today that if you cross or play the ball into the box from positions closer to the penalty area, there's a much greater chance of scoring."
Aksum is called "the doctor" for a reason. He holds a PhD from the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, where he spent four years researching visual perception in elite football players.
"Bedridden for two years"
In the mid-2000s, the 35-year-old was a young talent back home in Narvik who dreamed of becoming a professional footballer. But then he was struck by chronic fatigue syndrome, the neurological disease ME/CFS, when he was 16.
I was basically bedridden for two years, except when I was at school. At that time, people didn't know if you could recover from it either, so it was very tough. But my dad found a training regimen in London that I followed, and then I got completely well. But the illness has shaped me as a person because I know how bad you can feel and how low you can get. That's why I don't tolerate players who don't do their best every day. Because you should be incredibly grateful that you get to have this as your job. It's a fantastic profession, and I'm grateful that I have the next best job, which is being a coach.
The bachelor's degree was followed by a master's in coaching and psychology, and then the aforementioned PhD in visual perception. Aksum spent just over ten years at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, all the time with the plan of becoming a coach at the highest level.
It's difficult to reach the top as a coach without having been a top player. Then you need to have something that sets you apart from other coaches. There aren't many top coaches who have a doctorate, and knowing that I might be the best in the world at scanning and perception gives me some weight when I talk to players.
Visual perception is more than just scanning.
It's also how you look at the ball and how you look at teammates and opponents. Simply put, how you use your vision to gather information on the pitch. It's something that is becoming increasingly important. If you're not good at scanning in today's football, especially if you play centrally, you have no chance.
Aksum resumed playing football, reached the third tier in Norway, and actually has more goals than games in his career. When he stopped playing in his early twenties due to some injury problems, he had already decided to become a coach. He had moved to Oslo right after finishing upper secondary school.
The Norwegian School of Sport Sciences in Oslo was the only place in Norway where you could get a bachelor's degree in football coaching. Already when I was 19, my goal was to become the best coach I could be. Or I probably actually wrote "the best coach in the world," and that's still my goal.
"This is my bible"
"I brought this in case there's anything you want to see or know more about," says Aksum, pointing to his laptop.
As it turns out, there is.
For nearly 15 years, Aksum has been collecting and structuring all his thoughts on football and how it should be played and trained in one document. It now consists of around 500 pages and is updated every week. The table of contents alone is 19 pages long.
This is my bible. It's everything from culture, I'm very interested in culture, to training setups, methodology, pedagogy... I mean, everything. The playing model itself is 200 pages.
If we look at the attacking play, it's structured into 28 main principles, 31 sub-principles, and 35 sub-sub-principles.
Identified the best playing system
Of the 28 main principles, Aksum introduced about half into Mjällby's game last year and a few more this year. It quickly took Maif's offensive play to new heights last season.
Aksum believes that the 3-2-4-1 system is the best.
I looked early on at the 27 most common playing systems in football and, after putting in an incredible number of hours, concluded as early as 2012-13 that 3-2-4-1 is the best for attacking football. At that time, no team played like that. A few years later, Brendan Rodgers started playing 3-2-4-1 at Liverpool, and that was the first time I saw it, even though it wasn't exactly as I had envisioned it. I got a little angry then because I was supposed to be the first one with it. In today's football, 3-2-4-1 is very popular. Chelsea won the Champions League in 2022 with it under Thomas Tuchel, and Bayer Leverkusen is the best at it. They play fantastic football.
Mjällby also naturally operates with a 3-2-4-1 nowadays.
It provides fantastic passing opportunities based on angles and so on.
But we don't get to see more than the preface, the table of contents, and a page about the attacking principles.
I'm transparent about most things, and when I was the coach for Odds U19 team in Norway, I posted almost every exercise on X. But this document, no one gets to see it. I'm keeping it to myself until I'm 70 and have retired. Then I'll release it as a book.
When Aksum was done in the academic world, he took over Odds U19 team and was given complete freedom to implement his ideas from "the bible." It was an immediate success, and after two seasons, he moved to Sweden, Allsvenskan, and Mjällby.
But Aksum, as you've realized by now, has bigger plans for his coaching career than being an assistant coach in Allsvenskan.
I see myself as a head coach. The club knows that too.
Had an agreement with a new club
Already in November, he still extended his contract with Mjällby until 2026, with an option for an extension until 2027.
This winter, he received an offer to become the head coach of a club in the Danish second tier that is investing heavily to get promoted to the Superliga.
Everything was basically done. I had spoken with the sporting director and the coach who was going to leave. But then my agent called and said that Mjällby didn't want to let me go. I was furious. I felt trapped. But then I sat down and talked to the club, and they explained their view of things. They really wanted to keep me and believed in what we're doing. Then I felt it was okay. I enjoy being in Mjällby a lot, and we have something exciting going on.
It's noticeable that "the doctor" enjoys being in Hällevik. He likes to talk at length about his football philosophy, life as a coach, and his relationship with the players.
He is clear that he has a main role in how Mjällby plays football.
I don't interfere with the team selection unless Anders (Torstensson, the head coach) asks me. But how we should play, our principles, that's my responsibility. I have the main responsibility for the attacking play and am involved in how we should defend.
He is also clear that he has a strong belief in what he does.
I know that this way of playing is the future. Just look at Brighton under Graham Potter and Roberto De Zerbi. It's very similar to what we do.
And speaking of the future, Aksum's long-term goal is clear.
I want to coach a big club in Europe. Absolutely. That's my goal.
When Aksum was to defend his doctoral thesis at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, he was given two weeks to explain "why football coaches' love for rondos must end."
Rondos? The square, the classic training exercise, is a type of rondo.
Rondos is a collective term for all possession exercises that only involve keeping the ball within the team. I thought my analysis was quite good and posted it as a thread on X. The thread received quite a bit of attention because the square is an exercise that most coaches, and not least players, love. Now everyone thinks I hate the square, but I don't. But I'm not a fan of it, and we never do regular rondos in our training sessions. The players, on the other hand, do the square in the warm-up, before we coaches come out, because they think it's so much fun.
All the years within the football academic world have given Aksum a large network of contacts. For example, he did his doctoral project on visual perception together with Woolwich, and he has made study visits to clubs such as Ajax, Feyenoord, Southampton, and Aston Villa.
The visit to Feyenoord in December 2022, right in the middle of their title-winning season with a certain Arne Slot as head coach, was special.
"On study visits like these, you usually only meet with the club's academy. But Arne Slot spent two days with me. I got to sit in on their coaching meetings, show how we trained, and I did an analysis of Feyenoord's players. He took me out for dinner, and we sat and discussed rondos for five hours because he was a big fan of rondos and knew I wasn't. He probably spent three of those five hours trying to convince me that it's a good exercise. He was fantastic. Here comes a researcher from Norway who coaches a Norwegian U19 team, and he wants to learn from me. I think that's extremely impressive. If you have that kind of view on knowledge, you'll go far."
Do you watch a lot of football?
Much less than before. Before I became a full-time coach, I could watch eight Premier League matches a week. I have my girlfriend with me from Norway, and I work so much. I'd rather watch our matches and clips over and over again. And I'd rather see a three-minute clip on X with something tactical than a whole match. That develops my understanding of football. My goal is that no one should know more about attacking play than I do. If someone does know more, I'll learn it. But I read a lot about football. I try to learn something new or extra every day.
Mjällby changed their playing style before last season, becoming a more playing team with significantly more possession than before. But they have continued to develop their attacking play this year and have scored the most goals of all teams after seven rounds.
Last year, we were very successful with our attacking play on the wings, where we overloaded and found nice combinations. Before this season, we have spent a lot of time developing the central combination play. If we get both right, we will be difficult to stop.
Can switch between many systems in a match
They have also worked a lot on the regaining press.
We tried to get better at it last year, but we weren't tough enough. We didn't manage to push the opponents low enough to do it well. We manage that better this year, and it's very difficult to counter-attack against us. And we have developed more variation in our game. The players are now very comfortable switching systems three or four times during a match.
A medium press is another factor behind Mjällby's success.
We have become much better at winning the ball higher up the pitch without overextending ourselves in the press. We have good collective defending, and everyone knows exactly what to do in the press. It's a lot about smartness and timing in the press. We have worked incredibly hard on that.
The fact that Mjällby is difficult to beat and has the best goal difference in Allsvenskan (+8) after seven rounds is clear evidence that Aksum's "football bible" and tactical knowledge have had a significant impact.
He naturally has ambitions to become a head coach eventually.
I had a good conversation with the club this winter, and they know that I want to take the next step. But I have no problem being an assistant coach in Mjällby. I enjoy it a lot, and I am given a lot of responsibility. It's a fantastic club with fantastic people. But I want to become a head coach. Preferably yesterday. But I have patience.
And who knows, in a few years, perhaps "football doctor" Karl Marius Aksum's "bible" will be available for purchase in bookstores.
A lot of teams press high, or they press low. But they have nothing in between. We believe very much in a medium press, and it's becoming increasingly common in international football. If the opponent manages to play past our high press, we don't drop all the way back to the penalty area; instead, we try to stay around the center circle and be compact there. This way, we don't give the opponents 60 meters just because they manage to play through the initial high press; they constantly have to work to push us lower and lower.
Who is best at the medium press?
Bayer Leverkusen is fantastic at it too, and we are very inspired by them. They have the same system as us in the medium press: 5-2-3. Liverpool can also be good at it, but they often use 4-2-4 in the medium press, which has become very popular.
Which Allsvenskan teams are good at it?
There are quite a few teams that use a medium press 100 percent of the time. Elfsborg was good at it last year after Oscar Hiljemark took over. Göteborg has been okay at it, Gais can be quite good. Hammarby is extreme with their high press but is also good at the medium press.
Aksum and Mjällby are also influenced by Atalanta's man-to-man defense.
This thing about going into a man-to-man defense has exploded in recent years. We see it all over Europe now, and in Norway, it has been big for a while. In Sweden, we have seen very little of it. We are playing more man-to-man this year than before, inspired by Atalanta, who are the best in the world at it.
Aksum praises the older guard in Mjällby's squad for how they have embraced the tactical innovations of the past 1.5 years: Tom Pettersson, Jesper Gustavsson, Jacob Bergström, Herman Johansson, Viktor Gustafson, and Alexander Johansson.
They have been extremely curious and interested in developing this way of playing. It would never have worked if they had said no. They have also had a fine individual development even though they are approaching, or have passed, 30.
Which teams are playing the best football right now?
I have never seen better attacking play than what PSG has now. Inter also has fantastic attacking play. There have been better teams like Manchester City and Barcelona, but that was perhaps because they had such extremely good players. PSG as a team is the rawest I've seen in terms of attacking play.
"Hammarby in a league of their own"
In Allsvenskan, Hammarby is in a league of their own. They are without a doubt the best team in Allsvenskan. The fact that we could beat them in a single match was very enjoyable, and we showed that we could compete with them. But the way they play, press, and attack is fantastic.
Very well coached!
What about Malmö?
Last year, they moved away a bit from this relational play, and I felt they played a lot of long balls, just sending it up to Isaac Kiese Thelin when they were pressed. Nothing new came from Malmö last year. The new thing in Swedish football has come from Hammarby. Tactically, I think Hammarby is much more exciting than Malmö.
Do you think Mjällby can win Allsvenskan this year?
No.
No?
No, I don't think so. Anything is possible, of course. But it's become a strange discussion now. If we had five wins and two draws in the middle of the season, no one would care. But just because we've done it at the start, we're suddenly a gold medal contender with 23 rounds left. If we look at the corresponding matches last year, we've only taken one more point this year.
On Sunday, you face AIK away in an early top-of-the-table clash. After that, both Djurgården and Hammarby await at 3Arena within eleven days.
These three matches will be our big test. Last year, we didn't win any of the matches in Stockholm. If we win one or two of them, we might end up higher in the standings than we did last year, says Aksum."