Jacob Bergstrom was never picked up by a youth academy and was still playing amateur football at the age of 22. When he joined Mjallby in 2018, he kept his job at Subway to make ends meet, and did not become a full-time professional until he was 24. Few stories in Swedish football are quite like his.
Now 31, Bergstrom has scored 10 goals in 22 games in 2026, including the winner in the Swedish Cup final in May. Over the past year, the striker has been central to Mjallby winning both the Swedish championship and the Swedish Cup — the first time in the club’s 87-year history they have claimed either honour.
“When I first came here, we were in the third division,” Bergstrom told BBC Sport. “I was so happy to sign. It was so big to me then. I never dreamed of anything like this. For me to be here now is crazy, and to do it with Mjallby as well is amazing.”
Bergstrom grew up an hour’s drive north of Mjallby in Karlskrona, a naval city in Blekinge County where handball and ice hockey are more popular than football. After a brief spell with Stockholm-based Djurgarden in 2023, he rejoined Mjallby and relocated with his wife and two children to Hallevik, the fishing village where the club is based. He now cycles to training and matches at Strandvallen, the club’s home ground just 100 metres from the Baltic Sea.
Mjallby attract fans from across Blekinge County, averaging home crowds of 5,000 last season. Hallevik’s population quadruples in summer as holidaymakers arrive, though winters are quiet. For Bergstrom, that suits him fine. “You have the ocean and the people,” he said. “It’s so beautiful by the water and the beach. In the winter there’s not many people here, so it doesn’t fit for everyone, but it fits for us.”
Image credit: BBC Sport / BBC Sport
