Arsenal's Victor Gjokeres was a rising star at Coventry and a goalscoring sensation for Sporting, but it was at Brommapojkarna that he made his breakthrough into senior football; the Swedish club act as a talent factory and their unique approach to youth development has drawn mixed opinions.
Pictured: Dejan Kulusevski, Viktor Gjokeres and Lukas Bergwall all came through the same club in Sweden.
Victor Gjokeres is settling into his new surroundings at Arsenal, but he shares common interests with two of his new north London neighbours. Like Tottenham's Dejan Kulusevski and Lukas Bergvall, he is a product of IF Brommapojkarna's youth system.
Gyokeres, Kulusevski and Bergvall are outstanding graduates of their youth team, but there are hundreds of similar stories across the continent. This small Swedish club, which barely fills its 5,000-seat stadium, boasts one of the largest academies in Europe.
“We basically have no fans,” sporting director Filip Berglund told Sky Sports. It's a surprising statement. “Our stadium is very small, our gate receipts are low and it's hard to compete commercially because the big Stockholm clubs are taking all the sponsors.”
Instead, Brommapojkarna has unashamedly focused its efforts on one thing: developing young players who can be sold for top dollar. “Everything we do is aimed at generating income from transfers,” Berglund adds.
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This implies the presence of a large network of young players.
From the age of eight, they have about as many players in the academy as there are seats at Grimsta IP. Most of them play for the lower teams, training at Brommapojkarna and fighting for places in the “prestige teams” based in the club’s centre.
These teams tend to dominate their domestic leagues. “For example, in the Swedish U17 top league, there’s currently one team in first place and one in second place,” says Berglund. They also regularly beat strong opponents in continental tournaments.
The aim is for the best of the best to rise through the club's youth ranks and eventually make it into the first team, so Brommapojkarna's board celebrated as they moved up through the divisions to set a club record last year by spending a third consecutive season in Sweden's top flight, Allsvenskan.
“Of course we want to strengthen our first team and finish as high as possible in the league table, but that is not the main goal,” Berglund notes. “The main goal of our participation in Allsvenskan is to put a lot of young, high-level players on the field and increase their value.”
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That, in turn, will help Berglund fulfill his responsibilities when he joins the team from Hammarby, one of the three big clubs based in the Swedish capital along with AIK and Djurgården, in 2022.
“I came in the year we came out of the second division and my main goal was to start selling players for more than the club had done before,” explains Berglund.
“Now it helps us
Sourse: skysports.com
