AIK trounce Sirius and Zlatan is still not playing for Sweden

AIK put what might be called a reserve team on the pitch for today's friendly against Division two side Sirius. 4-0 was the final score, Bernt Hulsker, Alexander Gerndt got one each while our own Inzaghi, Daniel Mendes, got a brace. This looks like it will the best preseason since ... uh, forever with almost every player in the squad getting significant playing time and everyone looking fit. A normal preseason often has consisted of AIK borrowing players from left and right just to get a starting XI. Kudos to both the fitness staff of Thomas Lindholm and Oskar Skatt as well as our other staff.

The papers are going nuts after The Brand Zlatan declared he wasn't coming back to the national team in an interview yesterday. The same old stories, "Zlatan is so weird" and "Zlatan hates Lagerbäck", are reitirated everywhere while this blogs faithful readers, all two of you, already are in the know. This doesn't stop the media from sharing such nuggets as Mr Raiola, The Brand's Guiding Light, talking to Swedish journalists:

- I'm sorry, I am not Mino.
- Look Mino, I've talked to you hundreds of times, I know your voice!
- I am not Mino, sorry.

Fantastic. It's like watching kids running around creating havoc. And making millions of dollars doing it.

Zlatan played really well for an hour in today's game against Cagliari. A fantastic football sequence: Figo backheels the ball to Zlatan who, with a deft outside touch, crosses the ball perfectly for Burdisso to head into the net.