Dream start for Stefan Larsson. Nightmare start for Henok Goitom.
The new, temporary Kalmar FF coach led the team to a 2-1 win in his debut away against a struggling AIK, where Alexander Milosevic and John Guidetti made their comeback.
In mid-June, Henok Goitom, usually assistant coach at AIK, took over after Norwegian Henning Berg resigned. A few days later, Stefan Larsson, coach of Kalmar FF's P19 team, took over after Dane Henrik Jensen was bought out as new assistant coach in the Championship team Burnley.
On Sunday afternoon, the two temporary coaches met at Friends Arena in Solna, which will change its name to Strawberry Arena on Friday, and it was the visiting team's coach who took all three points.
Kalmar thus rose from second-to-last place in the Allsvenskan to a qualifying spot with one more match played than IFK Norrköping, who will receive Djurgården on Monday.
"Precarious situation"
We are still in a precarious situation where we need to maximize, optimize - call it what you will - every day, every training session. Today, we see that we are on the right track, says Stefan Larsson and continues:
The guys really deserve praise for the way they take on the match. It's not just about going out and meeting AIK here at Friends' home in a restart and doing the parts we've talked about.
Kalmar took the lead through Jacob Trenskow in the 34th minute with a sweeping long ball from Norwegian center-back Lars Sætra.
AIK, who were booed by the home crowd both after the first half and after the match, had previously had a goal disallowed for offside in the 24th minute.
Salétros substituted due to foot injury
In the second half, the home team increased the pressure, despite the fact that playmaker and national team player Anton Salétros had to be substituted due to a foot injury.
In the 63rd minute, Ioannis Pittas equalized to 1-1 with his eighth Allsvenskan goal of the season and moved up to a shared second place in the scoring league behind Malmö FF's Isaac Kiese Thelin.
In the 75th minute, Kalmar decided the match when Sotirios Papagiannopoulos failed to clear Simon Skrabbs' ball into AIK's penalty area. Robert Gojani kept himself on hand and scored 2-1 in front of the hundred or so away supporters in one corner and decided the match with his first Allsvenskan goal of the year.
In the 79th minute, John Guidetti was substituted in for new table-tenth AIK after a long injury absence to the crowd's jubilation, but barely touched the ball during the quarter he played.
We maybe shouldn't lose the match just in the second half. Then maybe we are the better team. But that's football sometimes. You can't start the match by throwing away 45 minutes like we did. Then it gets tough, says the striker and continues:
I'm still building myself up and fighting on. It feels really good. My body feels good, that's something positive. You have to try to find the small positives you can. But it's a tough day, it's sad.
