I feel the “Swedish link” died in 2006 when Elmander chose Toulouse over Rennes, Wilhelmsson chose Nantes over Rennes, and we lost two of the three swedes that played for us. Since then, we haven’t proved either as successful, nor continued in the same logic as the first two signings : Hansson (and Elmander and Majstorovic) isn’t young, didn’t play in Sweden, and wasn’t brought in as “back-up” or “a future player”… When Källström signed, he was a bench midfielder, who pushed into the first team during the second half of the season. When Isaksson joined, it was partly because of Cech’s departure, but he wasn’t expected to be the first goalkeeper, something that Chaigneau was supposed to be. But after those two, Bolöni and Dréossi seemed to try to buy Swedish players not only because they were young, talented or good prospects, but because they were Swedish… Edman was a great buy, but he wasn’t bought in the same logic as Källström or Isaksson : he played in EPL, was pretty well known, and was touted as the #1 left-back upon arrival. Same for Hansson, who seemed to be on Dréossi’s tabs more because he was Swedish than because he was good…

So yes, there’ll still be Swedes at Rennes. But the “link” is dead. There’ll be a Swede or two, but just like we might have a pair of players from Gabon, Cameroon or Sweden. There isn’t any “link” that makes it look like any good kid that’s playing in Sweden will be swooped up by Rennes when he’s still unknown (yes, there is a Swedish youth player at Rennes, but he joined back in 2004). Instead, it’s more of a co-incidence since they don’t play in Sweden.

To illustrate this : last season, we were linked with Hansson, Sandberg and Mellberg. Only one played in Sweden, although all three were swedes. Instead of looking within Swedish clubs, we were just looking at the Swedish NT. And that’s when the link died (for me).