From Subway shifts to Swedish glory
Swedish veteran striker Jacob Bergstrom has gone from working in Subway to scoring in the Champions League in eight years. Bergstrom, 31, played a crucial role as Mjallby won their first-ever Swedish top-flight title last year.
In May this year, he scored in the Swedish cup final, helping his club lift the trophy for the first time in their 87-year history. This period of unprecedented success has also translated into a European run, with the club now looking to qualify for the Champions League proper through the tournament’s gruelling qualifying rounds.
Once again, the target man played a pivotal part in the second qualifying round, finding the net in the 3-0 first leg victory over Lincoln Red Imps of Gibraltar. A 3-0 win on aggregate over two legs will now see Mjallby take on Slovan Bratislava, managed by former Barcelona and Manchester City midfielder Yaya Toure, in Tuesday afternoon’s third round qualifying clash.
For all of his recent glory, Bergstrom had to wait a considerable amount of time to reach such heights in his football career. He was never picked up by a youth academy and was still playing amateur football aged 22.
Late bloomer who kept working
In 2018, he joined Mjallby, who played in Sweden’s Division 1 (third tier) at the time. A sign of just how uncertain his career was is that he juggled playing football with working at a Subway chain in his hometown of Karlskrona in order to make ends meet.
I'm unfortunately not there that often anymore. But when I am, it's definitely one of the options on the list when you're deciding where to eat. You can never go wrong with a sandwich!
The 6ft 3in striker at the time was scoring at a rate of around eight goals per season. Last term, having begun his third stint with Mjallby in 2023, Bergstrom enjoyed the best season of his career.
In 2026, the Swede has kicked on and scored an impressive 10 goals in 17 appearances, taking his total career tally to 123 goals. Yet, he remains humble and unchanged by the increasing attention that comes with being Swedish champions and competing for a place in the Champions League.
When I first came here, we were in the third division,
I was so happy to sign. It was so big to me then. I never dreamed of anything like this. It was like, I didn't even think about it. For me to be here now is crazy, and to do it with Mjallby as well is amazing.
Mjallby is based in Hallevik, a coastal village in southern Sweden with fewer than 1,000 residents. They play in an old 6,000-seat stadium named Strandvallen, 100 metres from the Baltic Sea and tucked away between some woods, a campsite and an outdoor swimming pool.
Bergstrom grew up an hour's drive north in Blekinge's capital Karlskrona, a naval city where handball and ice hockey are the more popular sports.
Incredibly, the forward still insists on cycling to matches and training at Mjallby's home ground.
While Hallevik is a sleepy fishing village in the winter, holidaymakers quadruple its population in the summer.
Bergstrom said:
You have the ocean and the people. 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.
Every time I take my bike to the game, I see all the people in their yellow and black shirts. Everyone has flags in their garden. It's so fun to see everyone get together. They are so proud to be part of this journey we've made together.
Following last season's win at Mjallby's big-city rivals, the forward grabbed a megaphone and led a chant of
