Football Season Guide

Djurgarden suffered through a disappointing 2025. Missed out on Europe and the top 4 by 2 points. Made a deep run in Europe in the 2024/25 campaign. This meant that the early months of the season saw many back-ups playing in the league. This led to a slow start and the Blue and Blacks never recovered. This 1st year in charge for the Finnish manager Honkavaara exposed the lack of depth. Forced to use 8 different Academy players throughout the year. It seems the team’s lack of depth will be even more pronounced in 2026 after some major departures this winter. Main LB Kosugi moved to Germany. Reliable CB Danielson left too. He was replaced by Leon Hein, who is simply not as good and comes from a team that barely survived. Starting CM Schüller is also no longer in the team. Veteran Ekdal also retired. Peter Langhoff added to this area but he is an unproven player and comes from Denmark’s 2nd division. The main weakening was in attack this winter. Lost both Priske and Nguen, between them they scored 27 of Djurgarden’s 52 goals last season. This after letting striker Sawo leave for Cyprus. The only new signing in attack so far is Norwegian Lien. He will team up with his countryman Hegland up front. Not much depth behind them though. Not being involved in Europe will help Djurgarden but the lack of depth means that they are just an injury or 2 away from struggling in certain areas. Coach Honkavaara is also under much more pressure in his 2nd year. He knows that another slow start could cost him his job.