AIK 4-0 Halmstads July 11th 2011

The trip down from Haparanda to Stockholm ended at 6am on the morning of the AIK v Halmstads game. I planned to go see this game to see for myself the hype that was being centred around AIK's striking duo of Mohamed and Ibrahim Bangura, no relation. This game was also featuring a Halmstad side bottom of the Allsvenskan and by some distance. The Spanish invasion at the club simply hadn't worked and the club have been dire defensively. However there was also Irish interest in this game as AIK had Kevin Walker on their books. Kevin being the brother of Jonkoping's Robert.

Having spent the two hours looking around Stockholm and walking to Solna, I found my hotel where I got settled in and began reading up on the match ahead. The national paper reported that Kevin Walker had handed in a transfer request if my Swedish is anything to go by, which meant he would proberly not be at the game tonight which was a pity.
The game had a kick-off time of 19:00 which is the norm in Sweden. Halmstads bought about 20 fans to the Rasunda. AIK named a strong team that did include the two Banguras up front.
The encounter began at a ferocious pace, with AIK dominating in the opening stages. After twelve minutes it was no surprise when the front two linked up to open the scoring with Mohamed cleverly back heeling into Ibrahim's path for him to place past Karl-Johan Johnsson. Mohamed injured himself in the back-heel and was forced off but barely two minutes later Ibrahim Bangura made it 2-0 with a well placed header.

AIK continued to dominate afterwards and gave their shellshocked opponents no time on the ball with players hounding the ball when not in possession. Kenny Pavey, the English winger particularly working hard to win the ball back.
Pavey is such a cult hero in Solna with the fans chanting and singing his name after every touch or tackle.

AIK did manage to win a penalty just shy of the half-time break and was comprehensively dispatched by no other than Ibrahim Bangura to complete his hat-trick. With that the half-time whistle went.

Halmstads were surely thinking now "How do we contain this side". Contain being the crucial word because AIK came roaring out in the second halfwhere they finished in the first. Halmstads did have a few half-chances which were easily saved by Croatian keeper Ivan Turnia.

Just before the hour-mark AIK rounded up the game with the best goal of the night when Ibrahim Bangura picked up the ball 30 yards from goal and unleshed an unstoppable drive that dipped over Johnsson and into the top corner of the net right in front of the AIK faithful. A real peech of a goal that rounded off a fantastic individual performance. The game ended in the 4-0 victory to AIK and confirmed the standard that Halmstads will have to rise to if they are to have a chance of staying up in the Allsvenskan this season. However for AIK, they simply played fanastic.

After the game I took some photos of the stadium and the surrounding areas and ventured back to the hotel some one and a half miles away. The hotel was comfortable with a lovely room and the following morning I boarded the train that took me back to Orebro.