AIK – Hammarby

The Stockholm derby in Sweden will take place with a goal-for-goal exchange

Stockholm derby between AIK and Hammarby will take place at the very moment when the visitors have a chance to return to the fight for the championship title. Before the season began, Hammarby, along with Malmö, were considered the favorites of Allsvenskan. If the latter faltered and now can, in their best dreams, see themselves in the European competition zone, the capital city club spent the entire first half of the season in second place. Recently, Hammarby's gap to the leading Sirius stood at twelve points and looked insurmountable. Bookmakers offered a very modest odds of 1.10 for the championship title for the club from Uppsala. However, the second half of August changed many tournament layouts. Sirius lost twice in a row and allowed Hammarby to halve the deficit. Now the Stockholm clubs are not simply two wins away from first place, but also have a substantial psychological advantage over their rival. If in mid-August Sirius players already saw the trophy in their hands, Hammarby players, in the most daring dreams, did not think about the possibility of erasing twelve points of deficit. The former are now somewhat in shock, the latter approach the game with burning eyes. AIK is not participating in the battle for the championship title, but has good chances to join the fight for European competition spots. Now the Solna club occupies seventh place in the table, one point behind third place, but with a match or matches in hand against almost all rivals. That is, both clubs will be motivated; both will try to play effectively in attack. Some concern is caused by AIK's injury list, with ten players sidelined due to injuries. On the other hand, this situation did not prevent AIK from beating Örgryte and Djurgården in previous rounds, scoring seven goals in total. In particular, the Hammarby coaching staff should be troubled by AIK's victory in the capital derby against Djurgården. It will surely raise the confidence of the Solna players in their own abilities. In the last two head-to-head meetings, AIK and Hammarby exchanged goals and victories with the same score of 2:1. There will also be a goal exchange in Saturday's match.