LUND. The campus of the university, completed in 1666, is beautiful in the photos, downright sculptural.
Clear water flows in the fountain in front of the main building and you can almost hear the birds singing when you look at the picture.
Swedish students sit on a neat bench and look happy. The sun is shining and everyone has a bright future ahead of them.
The entire campus glows with wisdom and dignity from centuries ago.
The reality in March couldn’t be further. The trees don’t have a leaf and the empty fountain looks god-forsaken.
Water drops hit the face from the gray sky and the merciless wind hits the bones and core through the soaked light jacket.
The roof of the university’s sturdy main building offers little protection.
Fortunately, a familiar figure soon appears on the horizon. Linda Sällström greets cheerfully, even though he has been awake for several hours.
This morning has also started with a familiar pattern. Waking up at six without a clock, breakfast, schoolwork and a good 35-minute train ride from Hässleholm to Lund.
– Free time, what is it? I haven’t had one in a long time. This is now… I can handle it, Sällström laughs.
– It comes naturally from elite sports, to know that responsibilities must be taken care of. You can’t help but take care of them, no one else will take care of them for you.
Now, at the age of 34, Sällström is living perhaps the busiest time of his life. The days are filled with studies and football.
The pattern is familiar to many female professionals: when women are not yet paid handsome sums for playing, many learn a profession for themselves in addition to playing.
Sällström has always been fascinated by the medical profession. I am interested in the functioning of the human body.
– However, I thought that medicine was for super smart people and that I would never get in.
Sällström decided to try his luck, and almost got in.
– There are quite normal people here, I’ve managed quite well too, Sällström laughs now.
However, the first time in medical studies was not successful. It wasn’t because of Sällström’s badness.
– In Linköping, they stated on the first day that it is not possible to combine playing and studying. They did cooperate with athletes, but it only concerned track and field athletes and orienteers.
The final choice of sport took place at the age of 19, when Sällström made the A national team for the first time.
So the first bit of medical studies lasted less than a day. When Sällström joined Vittsjö in 2015, he decided to try his luck again – and the doors opened a second time.
There was only one, familiar puzzle: how to combine playing and studying.
– After the first e-mail, I had the same feeling that how could this be possible. I asked to meet with the study counselor to see if we could sit down and talk if a solution could be found.
The meeting was arranged and the study guide was also excited. It was agreed that if Sällström survived the first period, he would keep his study place, even if there was a break later.
– Then it took quite a few years before I started going to school, Sällström laughs.
In a joke, the love for football was rekindled
Sällström stayed in Vittsjö until the summer of 2018. In the previous season, he had scored 15 goals in Vittsjø, which entitled him to second place in the Damallsvenskan goal exchange. He had played football in Sweden for ten years and wanted a change.
Sällström got an agent who arranged for him to go to France.
– It was probably the best decision of my life to come here, Sällström declared back in December 2018.
Sällström had of course experienced three knee injuries earlier in his career and considered quitting. However, he had recovered from them to become the national team’s all-time best goal scorer and helped Finland to the European Championship with his vital hits.
However, the negative atmosphere in France made Sällström consider quitting. The young teammates could bark at the Finnish striker after a poor performance.
– I thought that I would continue until the European Championships and then I could stop.
However, Sällström headed back to Vittsjö via HJK, and his love for football returned.
– Right from the first week, I realized that futs can still be really fun.
Then came the European Championships, which went under the bench. However, Sällström managed to be the only Finnish player to score, but the lightning goal against Spain was a thin consolation in the end. Finland lost all three of its matches and was left in the first group.
Right after the European Championships, there were no big news of termination, because the World Cup qualifiers continued already in September. In the course of autumn, however, they started to sprinkle: Tuija Hyyrynen, Essi Sainio, Anna Auvinen, Anna Westerlund…
However, the national team’s all-time leading scorer decided to continue.
– I stated that I am not ready to quit. Gotta give this another chance. As long as you can combine football and school, you can play.
Sällström still has three and a half years of school left.
– There have been quite a lot of breaks, but now the intention is to push to the end.
However, returning to school was not the easiest thing to do. Everything that Sällström had previously learned had already been erased from his mind, and there was hardly any time left for revision.
Sällström continued his studies from the fourth period, which the students spoke of as the hardest part of his studies.
– Straight to the deep end. It was tough, but luckily it went through!
Fellow students had already changed a few times, and many had a hard time believing Sällström’s age was true.
And do classmates recognize Sällström as a national team footballer?
On a Monday in March, the camera in the classroom at least arouses hilarity, as medical students whisper to each other and then look at the camera.
Sällström laughs when he recalls his first day at school. He had to march modestly to class with the national team bag, because the journey continued directly to the Helmareite camp.
Yes, they probably know, even if Sällström doesn’t make a big deal out of his profession. A place is always modestly found at the back of the class.
Development at over 30 years old
The club has also helped in the integration: even on a Monday in March, the practices already start in the afternoon, and Sällström does not have to participate. The lecture overlaps.
– I have a clause in my contract that if there is compulsory schoolwork, you can be absent. They have been really understanding.
On those days when he has time for practice, a teammate catches him Jutta Rantala often pick him up directly from the station. On those days, Sällström is away from home around the clock.
Sällström knew what was to come, and started preparing for the season right at the end of the previous season.
However, a calmer preseason than usual was good for Sällström. In Helmareit’s previous tournament in Cyprus, the Finnish striker hit four times in one and a half games. The scoring streak continued in Vittsjö’s ranks in the next two Cup matches as well.
– Trainings and games bring a nice mental break to studying, you can get your thoughts elsewhere. The coaches have also been of the opinion that it can be a good thing that I’m not always in training. It’s getting to be this age too, and the body can’t take the same kind of crap as before!
National team coach Marko Saloranta has also noticed the development.
– This year will be 35 meters, but Linda is improving all the time. Attacking and movements have become more diversified, he is able to use other players even more, Saloranta also lists and praises the Finnish striker’s attitude.
So far, Sällström has managed to combine studies and gaming. Next autumn, however, there is a clinical training ahead, which requires even more attendance.
At the same time, Helmarit starts its first match in the history of the Nations League, followed by the European Championship qualifiers.
How, for example, is it possible to combine national matches and training?
– Don’t, I’m getting anxious, Sällström laughs but becomes serious.
– Now I try to focus on this week’s problems and live in the moment. This is not a long-term solution. Well, summer will soon come and then all you have to do is play football.
Well, would Sällström recommend the same solution to others?
– I recommend that during your soccer career you prepare for life after your sports career. But it might be worth choosing a field where there is not so much face-to-face teaching, he laughs.
Sällström’s time in Lund will soon be full and the train will go back to Hässleholm. Sällström is used to using the train journey to study. You should go to the store, and then your studies call again until it’s time to settle down for the night – and repeat the same thing the next day.
Sometimes there are studies on the Malmö side, in which case the train journey in that direction takes even longer, a whole hour.
But it’s still time for the last theme. The next European Championships will be played in the summer of 2025. The Nordic countries lost the application competition to Switzerland, and Sällström will therefore not be able to play a second time in front of the home crowd on the green of the European Championships.
The Finnish striker missed the summer 2013 World Championships due to a knee injury, but could the Finnish striker be seen in the third European Championships of his career?
– There’s still time for that… I don’t dare to plan so far into the future. But nothing is impossible in life!
Helmarit will face Slovakia in the A national match on Monday, April 10. at 2:00 p.m.