It's advantage Hacken after the first meeting in Stockholm six days ago, where Felicia Schroder's first-half goal was enough for the visitors to take a narrow advantage back to Gothenburg ahead of the deciding encounter, at 16:00 CEST.
Watching the first leg at Hammarby's 3Arena was Sweden women's head coach, Tony Gustavsson, who has called up several players who are eithering featuring in the final, or have moved on to bigger leagues and clubs around Europe having begun their careers at Sweden's top teams.
A former Hammarby coach himself, who went on to be assistant coach of the United States and head coach of Australia, returned to his homeland last year to lead its women's team, Gustavsson spoke to Flashscore at the first leg and could not praise the coaching and development of football in Sweden highly enough, while also remaining optimistic about guiding Sweden to the 2027 FIFA Women's World Cup.
As national team coach, how much does it mean to you to see two Swedish teams in the final of a European competition?
"It’s amazing! It’s a credit to the club football in Sweden and what a great job all the clubs are doing with player development. It’s a clear signal to the rest of Europe as well that in this country there are a lot of good coaches and a lot of good players."
As well as this final we witnessed the World Cup qualification of the men’s team and have seen Swedish stars going for big money to some of the biggest clubs. Is Swedish football in a good place right now and how do you make the most of that?
"First of all, credit should be sent to the ones who deserve the credit and that’s these people (referring to coaches) that do an amazing job with player development. It starts with grassroots football - I’ve been part of that as well - so it’s nice after being abroad for almost nine years to come home to Swedish football and see what they’ve done in terms of developing players, it’s amazing. And, as a national team coach, you know what it’s like, you borrow the players for nine days and try to make the best of it, but all the development happens in clubs."
What about the two coaches who have guided their teams here to this final (Hammarby's William Stromberg and Hacken's Elena Sadiku)? Is there anything you can learn from them?
"Always! I think we can learn a lot from each other as coaches. I’ve talked to them and, I think, those two are also two examples of the quality of coaches in Sweden. Look at all the coaches who have gone abroad now as well, to top clubs in top leagues, both on the women’s and men’s sides, it says a lot about coaches in Sweden as well and the quality. And that straight away goes down to the pitch and player development as well. It starts with coaches and leadership."
You’ve had some mixed results in qualification for the World Cup so far, how confident are you that you can turn it around and what will be the difference in the games ahead.
"First and foremost, the most important thing is that we have everything in our own hands now, in June. Two wins and we’ve qualified for the World Cup. If we don’t manage to do that in the direct qualification spot in June then we know we have playoffs in October and November, so, it’s just all on June now to try and take the direct spot with two wins, and if not, we’ll go for the playoffs!"