Helsingborgs warmed up for the Champions League visit of Celtic with a 7-2 demolition on Kalmar.
The win lifts last seasons champions into fourth place but they trail leaders Elfsborg by four points having played a game more.
Icelandic striker Alfie Finboggason scored twice in the first half as Helsingborgs went in at the interval leading 4-1. Kalmar pulled a goal back in the 52nd minute through Pape Diouf but the homeside rattled in three more goals without reply to run out easy winners.
Age Hareide is in his second spell in charge of Hellsingborgs and has turned the season around since arriving in June when they had drifted down to seventh place in the table.
“Under Hareide we play a more direct style of play,” midfielder Adrian Gashi explained. “It suits us better, and several of the players here know Hareide from his last period at the club.
“He came when everyone had written us off .We were twelve points behind the leaders, but when he arrived we knew what Hareide requires of us as players. It is an advantage that he knows the club very well.”
Hareide had a spells as a player with Manchester City and Norwich City where Martin O’Neill was a team-mate with Helsingborgs beating Sunderland 2-0 in friendly on August 4.
Like most Scandinavian coaches 58-year-old Hareide is a keen student of British football and was in charge of the Norwegian international side that was drawn in the same World Cup 2006 qualifying group as Scotland.
Scotland lost 1-0 at Hampden to Norway but won 2-1 in Oslo with Kenny Miller scoring both goals.
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Should we be worried? Och, I’m always worried about these qualifying games anyway.
im just glad that we’re gonna have european football. sure champions league would be grand, but if not, no worries from me.
i watched cliftonville beat kalmar 1 nil few weeks ago in belfast…the reds were rusty too. It was in Eoropa league and their away form is bad..so no worries there they wouldnt have scored against the celts, they couldnt against cliftonville….
Joe – thanks again for the report, nice one – i watched the match – best 2 players are forward Finnbogason and midfielder Mahlangu – if we stop those two, we’ll have a decent chance – main problem for us tho is getting thro their 3-man CB defence – fairly steady – the opposition Kalmar were maybe as good as the current Hibs set-up – if we play it clever, we can do it, but we gotta be professional about it – Finnbogason does not like a strong challenge and Broony on Mahlangu will be interesting – they’ve got a few big guys. We gotta just get right in about them, plain and simple, but of course with a degree of caution. Here’s hoping !