‘I got pissed off easily' - St Patrick's Athletic star on adapting to Irish move
St Patrick's Athletic defender Axel Sjoberg has revealed the biggest challenges of his move to Ireland so far - both on and off the pitch.
It's no surprise that the Swede has found it difficult to cope with back-to-back hamstring injuries.
The first, almost three months after his arrival in March 2023, sidelined him for four months, and when he suffered a recurrence on his comeback it ended his season and kept him out of that year's FAI Cup final.
But off the pitch there were some teething issues too, as he struggled to understand the Irish sense of humour.
'I would say the people,' replied the former Hammarby prospect, when asked about the biggest culture shock of his first move abroad.
'The people are very outgoing, nice people, and welcoming people. In Sweden it's a little bit more closed.
'In the same way at the beginning I didn't really understand all of the banter they were doing. Some of the things were like, I got pissed (off) easily, but it was good, now I understand it.
'It was just some of the words, I didn't really understand. They made fun of my accent or whatever.'
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Two years in and Sjoberg can now see the funny side - but he doesn't dare expose his friends and family back at home to the kind of jokes he hears here.
'I understand it more. Over here, if you are going to do a joke, you can say pretty much whatever you want. But in Sweden you can't really say certain stuff. No, no. It doesn't work there,' he said.
Reflecting on his injury woes, Sjoberg said his time on the sidelines just made him more determined to make his move to Pat's work.
'I was more like I don't want to go home. I wanted to prove I was able to play in the League and prove that I am not only injured,' he said.
'So I was not really looking to go home. I just wanted to prove I was not only injured.'
Sjoberg described his move to Ireland as a 'fresh start' after spells in his home country with IK Frej, Hammarby and BK Olympic.
'I was in a place back home in Sweden where I was a little bit stuck. I was more or less thinking 'Okay, let's go, I've nothing to lose',' he said.
'I think I wanted to take a move from the club I was playing in, but I also wanted a fresh start somewhere, to start from the beginning, and start to compete.
'Obviously, to go abroad is always a nice experience.
'I actually don't know (how the move came about). I had a phone call with my agent and we were in a discussion back and forth.
'Then I was like, I have nothing to lose, let's try it. I had never heard about the league before or anything like that. So I thought, let's try it.'
Sjoberg is aiming to help Pat's return to winning ways tonight when they take on second-placed Galway United.
Just one point separates the two teams, in a bottleneck of a Premier Division table.
Last week Pat's were 1-0 up away to Bohemians, only to concede twice in injury-time - so Stephen Kenny's men are eager to avoid a repeat over a busy seven-day period when they face Galway at home, before trips to Derry on Monday and Shelbourne next Friday.
'It's still really annoying, to be fair,' said Sjoberg of the Bohs defeat. 'Such a big game and it was just a big disappointment.
'I think we should have won that game. It's football, unfortunately we lost. We just need to bounce back from the loss and keep going, go on a winning streak again.
'We've been talking and discussing things that went wrong and what we can improve, what we are doing well and what we need to keep doing.
'We just need to do what we've been training on and talking about.'
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