Turning Torsos & Football

After sight-seeing in Lund,  Agneta and I went to Malmö with her daughter, Niki and her boyfriend, Martin. Originally it was supposed to be a day trip (plus I had a list of things I wanted to see), but the weather was super gross and it was  a Sunday, so it was decided we’d go in the early afternoon instead, about an hour before kick off. 

If you’re in Malmö, one of the main things to see is the Turning Torso. You don’t actually get to go in if you don’t book in advance/live there/have a meeting, but it is kind of cool to see it from the outside. The only thing is that that area of the city is all under construction and will probably be really interesting to see in a few years, but at the moment it’s really just Turning Torso with some new apartment buildings and hip restaurants by the water and then construction vehicles and a falling apart skate park in the other direction.

The buildings in that area, as I said, are new and I really would have loved if we had had the time to stop in at one of the coffee shops or restaurants that are tucked in under the apartment buildings.  One day I will go back and properly explore Malmö and get to see all the things that I had written down to see.

However! Even though I didn’t get to see as much of the city as I had wanted to, I did get to see the local football club, Malmö FF, play. I had mentioned a few days before that I was hoping to see the match and that I was going to grab tickets the day I went to visit, when Martin said that he could probably get tickets through work and that it might be something to do as a group. So, one thing led to another and all four of us ended up going. Agneta hadn’t been to a match in ages and said that it was much different than what she remembered a football match ever being (referring, mainly, to the fans with the tifos and the chants and the jumping at the other end.  I’ve included a couple of videos that I shot while I was there.

Malmö FF is the most successful club in the Swedish league, as well as one of the oldest, though they haven’t always been ‘the best’. However, they are home to one of today’s very talented and very watchable players. Zlatan Ibrahimovic played football there when he was just starting out and still holds the transfer record when he was sold to Ajax in 2001.  We were talking about the club and, nonchalantly, Agneta mentions that she had eaten pizza ‘with Ibra’ when he ‘wasn’t famous anywhere else, just in Sweden’.  Story: the pizza place was small and Ibra was there with a friend, Agneta was there with a friend and they were seated next to each other at a four person table.  There were also tidbits about how she lived on the same street as a famous Swedish goalkeeper, played in one of the first women’s matches in Sweden and is related, on the other side of the family, to a famous Swedish actor. And yet this woman tells me she’s not a hipster. Pssssh.

Apparently what Malmö FF players are known for doing, is going to the end of the pitch with the fans and then jumping/chanting along with them. Which I think is super cool/awesome/etc. Because I’m cheesy like that.

And this is me, being an awkward duck in front of a camera, but super excited to watch football, because it had been awhile and there’s just something about getting to watch live football, you know?

Things I’m Loving:

+ This room – (Because some things you just never get too old for.)
+ Helpful hints – (For those of you who stress.)
+ This study – (And the good having siblings does.)
+ This photo – (Because croquettes are delicious.)