Countdown; 3 days left. Breakdown; Defenders

Last year, the defense was supposed to be Hammarby's weak part. But after the first couple of matches, it was clear that Hammarby's defense was still strong. But throughout the season, even though the defense was doing alright, in many matches we saw a lot of individual mistakes that lead to goals for our opponents.

In 2008, there hasn't been any changes in the squad on the defensive side, although Uruguayan Claudio Dadomo has the capacity to play left wing back if needs be.

If everyone's healthy and sound, here's how the Defense will look like this year (from left):

-David Johansson-Christian Traoré-Suleyman Sleyman-Emil Johansson-

David Johansson came from Hammarby TFF in 2004, and immediately put in a strong performance. Since then, he's ever been a stability in the defense. As a wing back, nowadays you are supposed to be offensive too, when your team attacks. This is David Johansson's strongest ability, with at times perfectly astonishing breakthroughs, while his defensive play mixes brilliant efforts with individual mistakes. Need to raise his standards and erase mistakes.

Christian Traoré - originally from FC Copenhagen but recently came to Hammarby from FC Midtjylland (DEN), is the central defender in Hammarby that probably have the highest individual skills. His defensive game is always impressive, but some matches he can become almost entirely anonymous. His capacity is great, but he needs to take more initiatives.

Suleyman Sleyman - captain of the team after Mikkel Jensen's bad injuries, is the most physical player of all in Hammarby. As the classical car sticker in the 1980's said, Sleyman "Brake for Nobody". What he lacks in technique he makes up in good positioning and physical attributes. Sleyman is very popular among the supporters, but in some matches his capacities does not match his opponents, especially if the opponents are exceptionally fast.

Emil Johansson - the youngest player in the Defense, his future potential is enormous. Having been injured a little bit too often, his greatest abilities are in his speed and technique. As opposite to Sleyman, truth to tell Emil Johansson is not a large player. But size isn't everything, some say, and Emil's speed and technique have impressed on me in some matches. He must stay healthy, if Emil manage to stay on his feet during the season, he'll be invaluable to Hammarby.

Apart from these four "ordinary" defensive players, we have a some backup-players:
Kléber Saarenpää, Matthias Olsson, Fadi Malke, José Monteiro de Macedo.

Saarenpää, having played for the National Team, have by far the most experience of these four. He's excellent as a backup, since his individual mistakes are very few. But his age slow him down, and repeated injuries makes him unreliable. Monteiro is perhaps the most likely of the four to become ordinary in the Defense. He's fast, have reasonable technique, but is somewhat lacking in the positional play. Fadi Malke and Matthias Olsson are young players, have great potential in a long term, but is not considered to start many matches this season.

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Hammarby need to strengthen the Defense in a long term. We need a backup central defender, or a central defender that takes a shirt immediately.

Score: 3,5 out of 5