From Subway to Champions League: Jacob Bergström's Journey

In the tiny fishing village taking on Europe’s elite, the star striker still cycles to work.

Jacob Bergström is 31, built like a centre-half, and only a few years removed from serving sandwiches at Subway. Now he is preparing to face a Champions League winner in Yaya Touré, with Mjällby dreaming of another improbable step into Europe.

This is not how it was supposed to go for him. Not at all.

From Subway shifts to Swedish champions

Bergström never went through a glossy academy. At 22, while most top professionals are already established, he was still playing amateur football. When Mjällby picked him up in 2018, it wasn’t a gateway to instant stardom. He kept his job at Subway because the wages didn’t cover the bills. Full-time professional status only arrived when he was 24.

The rise since then has been astonishing.

Over the past year, the burly forward has been at the heart of Mjällby’s surge from local curiosity to national story. The club, founded 87 years ago and long used to life in the shadows, won the Swedish championship and the Swedish Cup for the first time in their history. Bergström, the battering ram up front, became a symbol of that transformation.

He then marked his Champions League debut with a goal, the kind of moment players raised in academies and under floodlights dream about. For him, it felt almost surreal.

“When I first came here, we were in the third division,” he 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 Mjällby as well is amazing.”

A village on the edge of the Baltic – and on the edge of belief

Mjällby’s story has travelled well, and not just because of the trophies. The club’s home is Hällevik, a coastal village in southern Sweden with fewer than 1,000 permanent residents. It is the sort of place you might drive past in a few seconds and never think about again.

Yet the strongest football team in Blekinge County has become a regional magnet. Last season, Mjällby drew average home crowds of around 5,000, pulling in supporters from across the area. For many, this is not just their local club; it is their shared identity.

It also became home again for Bergström. After a brief stint with Djurgården in Stockholm, he returned to Mjällby in 2023. He and his wife moved to Hällevik with their two children. The big man up front is now the big man in the village.

Hällevik changes with the seasons. In winter, it is quiet, almost sleepy. In summer, holidaymakers flood in, quadrupling the population. Strandvallen, Mjällby’s home ground, sits just 100 metres from the Baltic Sea, hemmed in by woods, a campsite and an outdoor swimming pool. On some days, it feels more like a holiday park than the gateway to the Champions League.

Bergström cycles to training and to matches. Past the sea. Past the flags. Past the people who know him not as a distant star, but as the neighbour they might bump into at the supermarket.

“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.”

Beer showers, megaphones and the face of an underdog

Supporters see themselves in him. At 6ft 3in, he is a classic target man, but his appeal goes beyond his aerial presence. He carries the underdog mentality of the rural communities that surround Hällevik.

He once scored and celebrated in front of Malmö fans, who responded by drenching him in beer. He did not flinch. Later, he joked that it “tasted very good”.

After a win over Malmö, the big-city rivals, he grabbed a megaphone and led a chant: “Whoever doesn’t jump is a Malmö pig.” It was raw, partisan, and exactly what the fans wanted.

Yet away from the pitch, little has changed. He still rides his bike to Strandvallen. He still shops locally. On the day after last month’s Champions League qualifier at home, BBC Sport ran into him in the supermarket like any other resident.

Europe comes to Strandvallen

Mjällby’s first European tie, against Lincoln Red Imps of Gibraltar, turned the village into a festival. At Strandvallen, 3,500 fans packed in for the club’s Champions League bow. A jazz band greeted them at the ground. Down by Hällevik’s marina, another 2,300 people set up deckchairs and cool boxes in front of a big screen.

“[Playing in Europe] is special for the whole village and for everyone here at the club,” Bergström said. “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.”

A 0-0 draw in Gibraltar was enough to take Mjällby into the third qualifying round. The reward: a meeting with Slovan Bratislava, 24-time Slovak champions and now managed by Yaya Touré.

The Ivorian knows the Champions League from its highest peaks. He helped Barcelona win the 2009 final at Rome’s Stadio Olimpico and became a driving force in Manchester City’s rise. On Tuesday, he will walk out at Strandvallen for a first leg that will feel a world away from those nights.

Many visiting teams already dislike the trip. The journey takes them through long stretches of farmland, where the main signs of life are tractors draped in Mjällby flags. When they finally reach the ground, they find a modest stadium that roars like something far bigger, especially on European nights. Mjällby’s most passionate fans are moved into the largest seated stand, concentrating the noise into a wall of sound.

Touré, now 43, has already picked up on the uniqueness of the place, saying Mjällby have “something that other teams don’t have”. He will experience it at full volume with a place in the Champions League play-offs on the line.

The dream that keeps stretching

For all the romance, there is also a safety net. Even if Mjällby fall short against Slovan Bratislava, they are guaranteed European football in the Conference League this season.

That means more trips, more big names, more moments that would have sounded ridiculous when Bergström was working behind a sandwich counter and playing amateur games on the side.

He never imagined this. Now he rides his bike past the Baltic, through a village draped in yellow and black, and heads for a Champions League night against Yaya Touré.

The fairytale keeps asking the same question: how far can a club from a village of 1,000 people really go?