Djurgarden – Malmoe

The champion will play better than the capital club in the first round of the new season

The next Swedish championship, as is customary in several other countries on the continent, will start with a real football festival. It will feature the country's most titled club and reigning champion Malmö, as well as one of the two most titled clubs in the Swedish capital, Djurgården. Last year, the 100th national championship was played on Swedish soil. The opponents for the opening game of the 2025 season played it in very different ways. Malmö defended the title, but after a shaky triumph in 2023 they did it very confidently. The Sky Blue's final lead over Hammarby and AIK in the capital totalled eleven points. In turn, Jurgården last season can be recognised as the most unlucky club in the upper half of the standings. The Stockholm team got so caught up in the Conference League that they finished fourth in the league. This state of affairs leaves two chances for Djurgården to play in the next European Cup season: win the Conference League this season or hope that Hecken will not beat Malmo in the Swedish Cup final, which will be played at the end of May. Bookmakers have identified the guests as favourites for the upcoming meeting, offering odds of 2.37 on their victory. Malmo have done well on the transfer market in the winter. If the departure of Peruvian Peña to PAOK can be considered a loss for the club, then the arrival of Arnor Sugurdsson, Emmanuel Ekong and Johan Karlsson can be considered a good reinforcement. Another thing is that the Icelander is still recovering from the injury he received at Blackburn. However, the sky-blues have enough resources to become Swedish Cup finalists, where they can win their seventeenth title in this tournament in May. Djurgården, meanwhile, saved their energy in the national cup, having been eliminated in the group stage. The team, despite failures on the national stage, surprises in the Conference League. There, the capital team achieved an unprecedented success for Swedish football in the form of the quarter-finals. There, Djurgården will soon play with SC Rapid, which the team is quite capable. Nevertheless, in the last personal meeting with the champion, the capital club lost with a score of 0:4. It is unlikely that the hosts will succeed this time.