It’s a new year… and another new league for Nacka FC.
After 2025 brought a historic Division 2 title to the Fisksätra, Nacka’s extraordinary rise continued in 2026 as they finished 3rd in the Ettan Norra – and then won a dramatic promotion play-off against Öster! For the second season in a row, we were going up!
Now it’s 2027, and we’re in the Superettan – the second tier of Swedish football. This will bring us some even tougher challenges, not least the teething problems that come with turning professional…
A NEW ERA
Yes, because Nacka are now in the professional leagues, we have gone full-time with immediate effect. Considering that our average home attendance last year was only 210, I wasn’t entirely sure how we could sustain full-time wages. Fortunately, we have about £250,000 worth of sponsorship money coming in, and the Superettan offers decent prize money even for finishing in last place, so I think we’ll be fine.
(If you want to know more about how I handled the step up to professional status, I wrote a guide which discussed just that. I hope you’ll find some of those tips and hints useful if you get into a similar position on your FM save.)
As reality sank in, I had some tough decisions to take regarding who would sign professional contracts, and who would be let go. Defensive midfielder Success Nwosu decided to retire, while stalwarts Ismael Lindqvist, Bilal Mohammed, and two-time Player of the Year Yusupha Jammeh were all released.
This would also be our first season without our heroic left-back Elias Ziani, who was now at his new club Täby. Right-back Amr Belhaj‘s reward for setting up Ziani’s play-off winner at Öster was to be released early in pre-season. Captain Marcus Eriksson stuck around for a bit longer, but when he kept moaning about wanting more first-team football, I decided to let him go too.
By the end of the transfer window, we had signed twelve – yes, A DOZEN – senior players.
My first major signing was Arvid Wiklund, who I saw as Ziani’s replacement at left-back. Rasmus Møller was basically the only decent left-footed centre-back I could sign without breaking my wage budget. Gani Bunjaku (not pictured) is a solid no-nonsense stopper, while Danijal Omanović can do a job at right-back.
I needed a strong, energetic and young holding midfielder, so I spared no expense for Hadi Noori. Hadi is our new highest-paid player (on £325 per week) and looks like a great long-term upgrade on our ageing vice-captain Stefan Lindmark.
Omanović faces competition at right-back from North Macedonian youth international Peter Conkovski, who was the first of our loanees. Winger Noel Wall has great crossing and passing ability but has never played a league match before.
Meanwhile, we got ourselves a new senior affiliate in Hammarby – one of Stockholm’s biggest clubs. I hoped we would get some good (and free) loans from HIF, but they only lent us one player – 17-year-old Victor Olsson, who’s a skilful pressing forward with a typical teenage temper.
The ‘new Jammeh’ on the right wing will be ex-Malmö youngster Zakariya Enow, who has plenty of pace and dribbling ability. He’s also apparently a decent penalty taker, though he has already missed one in pre-season, so take that with a pinch of salt.
We then brought in THREE more signings on deadline day. Aidan Zaar Ibrahimaga (who sounds like a Wish.com Zlatan Ibrahimović) and Kevin Larsson Ajayi are both pacey young strikers who will be battling it out to partner Albin Rickborg up front.
And finally…
…Ziani came back home!
Täby had spent the entire winter saying, “We want to test Elias in a different environment, blah blah blah.” But just before the window closed, they went, “You know what? You can have him on loan – for free!” Cheers, lads!
SQUAD REPORT
It’s safe to say this is a very different Nacka squad from the side which won the promotion play-offs, let alone the team I inherited in 2024.
Backup keeper Kevin Blennestrand, centre-half Kenan Nišić and midfield runner Tim Hauzenberger are now the last survivors from my original squad. (Ilias Alaoui is technically still here, but he’s been sent on loan again. He’s also in the final year of his contract.)
Bravely (or perhaps stupidly), I decided not to sign a new goalkeeper. Christos Ronaldo Liantas looked solid enough the last time we stepped up a division, and Blennestrand still has plenty of time to realise his potential.
Meanwhile, 21-year-old central defender Victor Tjeder has been promoted to captain full-time after Eriksson’s exit. The big and determined stopper will be partnered on his left-hand side by either the experienced Pontus Johansson or our new Danish signing Møller.
Scottish-born playmaker Finlay Neat was one of our last players to sign professional terms, because he sulked about about “a lack of squad depth” for nearly four months. Luckily, the midfield magician is now here for the long haul alongside his partner-in-crime Hauzenberger. Meanwhile, I hope some extra competition will spur Albin ‘The Beard’ Rickborg on to deliver another prolific goalscoring campaign.
I’m expecting a major step up in difficulty this year, so we’re going to be a bit more conservative (without going full Badenoch). Switching to a direct 4-4-2 made a big difference in November’s play-off, and I’m hopeful that defending deep will frustrate our opponents… before we shock them with a quick counter.
Rickborg may well thrive with a strike partner, but my biggest question mark is over where Neat fits into this formation. Finlay isn’t defensively reliable enough to be either a holding midfielder or a Segundo Volante, so maybe we can use his acceleration as a left-winger instead? Then again, his crossing ability isn’t exactly stellar, so…
Of course, if the 4-4-2 doesn’t work long-term, we can always go back to the 4-3-3. That never lets me down.
Lastly, here are the bookies’ predictions… and oh boy, they don’t give us much of a chance. Apparently, we are the weakest team in the Superettan by far, and we should be expecting a world of pain and an instant return to the Ettan.
The 15th and 16th teams from this league are relegated automatically, while 13th and 14th go into those same play-offs that we won our promotion through last season. The top two teams are promoted and 3rd goes into a play-off..
…but frankly, I’m not bothered about that as long as we finish 12th or higher. Survival is our only goal this season, pure and simple.
And finally, we will indeed enter the Svenska Cupen this summer – at Round 2. We only need to win one match (played in August) to qualify for the Group Stage, which will begin early next season, because the Swedish football calendar is weird.
FIRST HALF
Our first match in the Superettan couldn’t have been any more difficult. We were away from home against the pre-season favourites – Allsvenskan semi-regulars Brommapojkarna. How many goals do you reckon we lost by?
We exchanged penalties with the Bromma boys in the first half, survived a second-half onslaught… and then Rickborg completed an incredible smash-and-grab win in stoppage time!
Rickborg took to the Superettan like a duck to water, and our new right-winger Enow also made an excellent start as we won three of our first four games! As for our defence… well…
I think this match against Norrby sums up our early performances. We were incredibly clinical going forward, but our leaky defence was absolutely not cut out for this level. That was especially true of Johansson, who had already conceded two penalties and was released immediately after this match.
I also dropped Liantas (again) and gave Blennestrand a run in goal (again). A few tactical tweaks also helped plug the defensive gaps, resulting in some more stable performances in May. This included an incredible 4-0 home win over Östersund, who were now a decade removed from their glory years under Graham Potter.
Speaking of Mr Potter, I was soon offered a job interview with another of his former clubs – Swansea, who’d just been relegated from the Championship.
And funnily enough, West Brom – yet another team on Our Graham’s CV, who were relegated TO the Championship – had also taken an interest in my services. (I haven’t heard anything from West Ham, though.)
Honestly, I’m not too sure why a second-tier manager in Sweden is getting job interview offers from major EFL clubs. Yes, I’m flattered, but I’m still fully committed to Nacka.
Those impressive May results had left us flying high in 3rd, but an unfortunate defeat at Umeå saw us drop out of the play-off spot before the summer break. Still, we were already nine points clear of even the slightest danger, and it appeared our defensive woes were now firmly behind us.
SECOND HALF
Or maybe not. July began with a couple of seven-goal stress tests.
First off, leaders Helsingborg blew us away by taking a 4-0 lead after just 20 minutes. In doing so, they effectively ended Nišić’s Nacka career (the centre-back spent the rest of the season on loan in Montenegro). We launched a spirited fightback in the second half, almost stealing an unlikely draw late on.
I was even more concerned when we fell behind THREE times at Täby. Teenage midfielder Amel Smajic got our first equaliser, Wiklund our second, before big Rasmus Møller headed in TWO second-half corners to win us the game. Who says corners are overpowered on FM24?
Obviously, our defence needed some reinforcements. So I went back to Hammarby and brought in a second loanee – the tough-tackling centre-half Viggo van der Laan, whose name sounds about as Swedish as Fjurg Van Der Ploeg from “Family Guy”. Shpoopel!
And with Liantas proving a liability at this level, I brought in another Swedish-Greek goalkeeper – also on loan. Alexandros Iliopoulos made an instant impact by keeping a debut clean sheet at Varberg, and then producing a fantastic display to restrict a rampant, revenge-seeking Brommapojkarna to just a 2-1 win at the Fisksätra.
So, obviously, we had to invoke Deadman’s law from my old FM21 save – your in-form players will ALWAYS get injured. Alex picked up a hernia and had to miss the next few games.
Despite that, the summer went pretty well, all told. Though Rickborg’s scoring form had dropped off, widemen Enow and Larsson Ajayi inspired us to four wins from our next five league matches.
It was around this time that I had decided to give up on the 4-4-2, which was making us too passive for my liking. Reverting to the 4-3-3 full-time allowed us to take a bit more control of matches instead of constantly being overrun in midfield.
We also made our long-awaited debut in the Svenska Cupen, but it was a VERY uncomfortable ride against Division 2 side Assyriska. We needed to come from behind twice before a late surge completed a 5-3 win and booked our place in the Group Stage, which will be played next February.
Despite a mixed bag of results in September, we were never in danger of being relegated. Another comeback win against Oddevold effectively sealed our survival – and by the end of the month, we were already assured of a top-flight finish!
And although Bromma and Helsingborg practically had the automatic promotion places on lock, we were now back up to 3rd place. With five games to play, we were on course for a potential play-off against an Allsvenskan team. Could we hold firm in the final straight?
THE RUN-IN
Erm… no. We slipped back down to 5th after back-to-back defeats, with Helsingborg giving our defence another damn good thrashing. However, a couple of excellent performances from Larsson Ajayi kept our play-off hopes alive going into the final day.
Meanwhile, Lindmark celebrated his new hair transplant by doing THIS in the final minutes against Täby:
Incredibly, that was the first red card Nacka had received since I became manager! It had taken us 113 matches, and almost four full seasons.
Lindmark is 33 now, and his first-team place is coming under real threat. Earlier in that match, I had given a professional debut to his potential successor – our most exciting youth product yet.
I’ve had a few half-decent players come through the Nacka academy and get some first-team gametime, but Furkan Öztürk could be the first one to make a significant lasting impact. He’s an aggressive, hard-working ball-winner, and his important attributes certainly aren’t dismal. Unfortunately, he seems to be incredibly disloyal, but hopefully I can mentor that out of him.
Anyway, here’s the sit-rep. We were one point behind 3rd-placed Trelleborg, who were visiting already-promoted Helsingborg on the final day. We also had a tricky away game against 5th-placed Sirius. If we could get a better result than Trelleborg, we would – incredibly – qualify for another promotion play-off!
After a goalless first half, Sirius upped their game and eventually took the lead, though not before Iliopoulos saved a penalty. We then pushed on for a late equaliser before Neat headed home in the 90th minute to save a draw. Was it enough?
No, it wasn’t. Trelleborg had held Helsingborg to a 2-2 draw. We missed out on the play-offs by a single point.
But I’m not too disappointed. Finishing 4th in the Superettan – in our first season as a professional club – is an incredible achievement. We have defied all expectations to stay well clear of relegation, and we have given ourselves a good platform to build on in 2028.
SEASON REVIEW
It’s unbelievable that we continue to beat the odds time and time again. I would have been happy just to finish above the relegation play-off places, but getting within a point of the promotion play-offs is testament to our incredible team spirit.
We were especially brilliant going forward, averaging two goals a game. Rickborg went to another level as he scored 15 league goals – the 4th-most in the Superettan. He also became more of a team player as he notched up eight assists, which doubled his combined tally from the previous two seasons!
Our other standout player was, of course, our right-winger Zak Enow. 6 goals, 13 assists, 7.34 average rating. We clearly didn’t miss Jammeh one bit.
Enow was voted as the Superettan’s Young Player of the Year – and 2nd place went to our left-winger Larsson Ajayi, who finished the second half in brilliant goalscoring form. I’ve been looking for a quick AND consistent inside-forward on that left flank for years, and it seems Kevin is just what we needed!
With Albin, Kevin and Zak all so clinical in front of goal, our attacking statistics really stood out. We outscored our xG by 14 goals (FOURTEEN!) and converted almost 20% of our shots into goals. Now that’s efficiency!
But although our defence wasn’t exactly terrible – conceding 44 goals in 30 games – the fact that we allowed the 5th-most shots per game was alarming. I was also seeing us concede the same goal over and over again. Opposition winger gets past our full-back, winger puts in a low cross, our centre-backs barely respond and leave a striker with an easy tap-in.
We can’t allow that to happen on repeat next season. I’d imagine the other Superettan teams will treat us with more respect, defend deeper, and not allow us to carve through their backlines so regularly. If we find it tougher to score, we will at least have to be more compact at the back, or a season of struggle beckons.
So, this winter, I’ll look to build almost an entirely new defence – goalkeeper, two centre-backs, and some long-term solutions at full-back. I mean, Täby wouldn’t dare let us steal Ziani back from them AGAIN… right?
We could also use some stronger backups for the big three up front, and maybe another midfielder. Neat and Hauzenberger weren’t quite at their brilliant best this year, so some extra energy might not hurt.
Making significant improvements to this team might prove tricky while our reputation is still so low. That said, we won’t have to worry too much about finances, not least because of this…
Told you there was some decent prize money in the Superettan.
And that ends an encouraging first season for Nacka FC in the Superettan! Thanks for reading, and I hope you’ll come back soon for the next chapter.
Fuller FM 