PHOTO: Bildbyrån
She is one of Swedish women’s football’s biggest profiles.
Now Hedvig Lindahl expresses her clear concern for the future.
– This concern is growing in me, she tells SportExpressen.
A total of 181 international matches in the blue-and-yellow shirt and double Olympic silver and double WC bronze have been achieved over the years. We have a real blue-yellow national team hero in us Hedvig Lindahl and she has single-handedly saved Sweden so many times.
Hedvig’s tough years
But the past year has been very tough for the Swedish goalkeeper, who turned 40 years old now. First, Lindahl received the news that she had been poked from the blue-and-yellow World Cup squad for the summer’s championships, and a short time later the tough news also came from Djurgården.
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The club chose to end the contract with Hedvig this summer and since then the veteran has been without a club. She now sees the end of her active career, but is still not afraid to say what she really thinks about the sport she has devoted more than 30 years to.
Lindahl’s fear
Hedvig Lindahl has followed the development of football on the women’s side from the first floor and after a long struggle the money is now starting to flow in. But still she feels a great concern for what will happen in the future.
– I am 25 percent hopeful about the future. But 75 percent worried, she tells SportExpressen.
– There are so few strong nations that drive women’s football, so strong forces in the background. When you can’t take it anymore, then the others pour in. It will perhaps be like a version of men’s football. This worry is growing in me.
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This summer’s soccer World Cup had major repercussions for what happened in the World Cup final when the Spanish confederation’s base Luis Rubiales kissed the Spanish golden hero Jennifer Hermoso on the mouth. Women’s football made huge headlines around the world and Lindahl has clearly noticed the trend towards even greater attention and the problems it brings.
– As women’s players in my generation, we haven’t had the pressure or the demands that the people who follow a men’s team have on the players. It was a completely new experience. I have had demands on myself, demands you place on yourself if you reach the national team. But then someone comes along and makes demands on us who are used to something else, she says in the interview.
READ MORE: Hedvig Lindahl is forced to apologize after the unexpected words about Sweden in the World Cup: “Worst in world history”
Hedvig is afraid of what the increased attention and thus pressure and demands from outside are doing to female soccer players.
– I think we are out on very thin ice for what will happen to women’s players. There was a survey from Denmark recently. Girls are four times more likely to end up with mental illness. You probably don’t have four times as big a support system as many guys. Rather 20 times less. I am worried about what will happen, she admits to the evening newspaper.
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