In the Swedish coastal town of Kalmar, Henrik Rydstrom is a hero. He spent virtually his entire playing career representing Kalmar FF, as a tough ball-playing midfielder and a warrior captain who led the club to their only Swedish title in 113 years. After two decades of service, the No 8 shirt was retired in tribute.
Rydstrom was not a stylish player, by his own admission. He once wrote in a blog: Our goalkeeper has a friend who thinks of me when he has sex with his girlfriend. He thinks of me to delay ejaculation. That’s how unsexy my style of play is. Kalmar played “boring” football, Rydstrom tells me. “I didn’t think too much about it, but there were a lot of restrictions – ‘you’re not allowed to do this, not allowed to do that’. The coach was always thinking about what could go wrong.”
