Hacken dramatically missed on a top three finish in Mikael Stahre’s first season in charge, with the bad luck heavily influencing the final position. The new gaffer immediately made his team playing open and aggressive style, but the football gods were not on Hacken’s side this year.
Only after 6 rounds the extremely important centre-back Sudic sustained a serious injury that ruled him out for the rest of the season. In July the problems were even more as in the same game the team’s main holding midfielder Farnerud and the league’s hottest striker by that point, Kamara, also suffered season-ending knee injuries. Kamara’s campaign was cut short when the Sierra Leone forward had 10 goals and 4 assists in just 18 appearances.
Stahre’s reaction was to sign Yasin, Celik and Ranegie in the summer and at least Yasin proved a great capture as he enjoyed very strong last few months at the club. Using the aggressive 4-3-3 formation Hacken never had problems scoring goals during the season and a run of five wins and a draw in six rounds in August and September saw Yellow and Blacks entering the top three.
Everything seemed to be going smoothly for Hacken, but then back-to-back heavy defeats against Norrkoping and AIK in rounds 24 and 25 saw the team slipping out of the top three again and the damage was done. Hacken finished the season with 3 wins and 2 draws, but they fell just short of a top three finish and the final feeling was of frustration and anger as at times Stahre’s men played extremely attractive football that was probably matched only by the outright champions Malmo.
