Anna Oscarsson on: Football
Emma Tobiasson spoke to the Glasgow City full back about her time in Scotland, experiences in Sweden, the UWCL and everything in between.
Anna Oscarsson is relishing her time in Glasgow City: “I wouldn’t change that for anything”.
The 27-year-old defender has only been in Glasgow City little over a year but has already had the time to win the league in dramatic fashion, play against Champions League quarter finalists and reunite with old friends.
Anna Oscarsson greeted me with a warm smile as the connection stabilised. An hour behind me on BST, the room behind her was still bathing in sunlight. We started off by immediately diving into how well the Scandinavian teams have done well in Europe this season. Both Swedish side Häcken and Norwegian Brann made it to the quarterfinals, before getting kicked out by Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona respectively.
“I’ve watched Häcken’s games and I’ve been very impressed, not just by them advancing but the way in which they’ve done it and the football they’re playing.”
Overall it’s been a good season for a diverse host of teams from different leagues who have managed to make it deep in the tournament. Anna’s team Glasgow City were close to get through to the group stages and get a taste of that Champions League action. What stood in their way? Brann. Although frustrating at the time, it could ultimately be interpreted as a positive sign, as they lost the qualification tournament final to a team that would go far in the main tournament.
What was it like when they played Brann?
“I would not say that we were completely shocked because we knew them but they were very strong physically. Like many of the Scandinavian teams are. Then they were very effective, across the two games we played, and we felt that we did not reach the level that we want to be at.”
She did not really fancy their chances against a dynamic and explosive Barcelona however which proved to be accurate, as the Norwegians ultimately fell against the Spanish side 5-2 on aggregate.
We chuckled lightly at the fact that it was only a few years ago that Barcelona played a Champions League tie at Petershill Park. The thought might seem rather incredulous now, given how the Spanish side has rapidly grown to become a superpower in European club football, but the fact is that they can be defeated (which was illustrated in the group stages) and regardless, the ambition of Glasgow City has always been to play against the best teams. It is becoming tighter in leagues across Europe as teams are catching up, and the competition is getting ever tighter, including in the Scottish Women’s Premier League.
Title races are intense affairs
Anna came to Scotland and Glasgow City in January 2023 and joined a team that has won 14 Premier League titles in a row before Rangers claimed their first title in 2021/22. This is but one indicator of how the gap domestically has shrunk markedly, which Anna got to witness first hand as she arrived in the middle of a title race that went down to the wire. The champions were crowned on the final day of the season, as both City and Celtic could win it. City finally clinched the title at Ibrox thanks to a Lauren Davidson goal in the 92nd minute, and perhaps a bit of luck, as Rangers got an equalising goal dismissed in the dying minute of the game.
Anna expressed a sense of having ‘the knife against the throat’ going into the last few games of last season, as the result dragged out - City dropped points and invited the other top teams into the race. At the same time, she recognised that the experience was important for them going into the run up of this season.
“It’s tough to be chased like the situation we were in last season but it was fantastic,” she reflected. “ Looking back, I wouldn’t change that for anything even if it was a few anxious weeks before we actually won the title.”
Currently in the run-up to the end of the season it is a tight title race: three of the Glasgow clubs have been battling it out for most of the season and the title is still very much up for grabs. There’s definitely been an increase of rivalry in the league table. Is the increase of rivalries something to appreciate?
“There’s a rivalry in that everyone wants to be the leading side in Scotland on the women’s side, so that’s good.”
Importance of coaches
To be able to sustain a title run, the dressing room is an important part of keeping up the momentum when times get tough. Whether that means allowing for an open-minded atmosphere, looking out for each other or picking each other back up after a fall.
“That’s one of the strengths of the team” Anna pointed out. “No player is scared of owning their mistakes [...] everyone takes a huge individual responsibility.”
Outwith the individual responsibility that is taken on by the players, the collective leadership is run by Leanne Ross, player-turned-coach, a point that Anna finds a real asset in her manager.
“Her experience as a player is really valuable, she can put herself in situations and she reads and sees the game in a way that I’ve not had a lot of coaches do before. There’s been many coaches who might not even have played football themselves, so a lot of it comes from the school books, and you can’t always study football/you can’t learn or teach only by studying football”
“She [Leanne Ross] is very clear and expects a lot from the players. [She] is also good at seeing the people behind the football player, we’re not just football players we’re human and that is something that goes through the whole club really, this feeling of not just being a brick in the play but a human, which has been very important for me in my football career”
Daring to change things up
Anna has previously played for Hammarby, Linköping and Eskilstuna United in Damallsvenskan and Elitettan in Sweden, as well as getting a few caps for the Swedish national team. During this time, a time in which things seemed to be going so well on the outside, she was also struggling with her mental health. After years of struggling a lot, she reached a rock bottom in 2019 which saw her eventually ask for help. Although football was a source of pressure, which comes with the territory when it comes to performance-based activities, it was also her safe place.
“I lost motivation, at the same time I knew what the root cause was and I needed a change of environment, another coach and so on because it wasn’t that good. So somewhere I found peace in knowing that.”
She started seeing a therapist and made the changes necessary to ensure that she was going to make positive progress. Anna has also been very open with what she has dealing with, talking about her experiences in the media. During the pandemic she became an ambassador for Suicide Zero, an organisation working with suicide prevention, and her aim is to open up the conversation around mental health in football.
It was when her last club, Eskilstuna United, went into administration and were demoted to Elitettan, with all player contracts cancelled, that Anna saw her chance to try something new. She had been thinking about testing her skills outside of Sweden so when Glasgow City showed their interest she saw her chance, and immediately got a good impression from the club.
“I did not have any expectations - I didn’t know much about the league, about Scotland as a country or Glasgow as a city” she openly admits, “which I think was good because I constantly get positively surprised.”
Reuniting with a familiar face
Coming to Glasgow would also mean getting to reunite with a familiar face. Elena Sadiku, who was appointed as Celtic Women’s coach at the start of 2024, used to play with Anna in Hammarby. She was also the coach of Eskilstuna United during part of Anna’s time at the club. The pair has now gone from teammates, player-manager, to simply being good friends who don’t really discuss football at the moment. At least not the domestic kind.
“Most of all I’m happy for her because it’s a great job [...] As a friend I’m really happy. And it’s of course fun for me to have her here as well, even if we can’t talk about football. But there’s a lot of other stuff to talk about!”
Glasgow City’s next game is another huge moment in the title race, away at Rangers. Tickets can be found here. For more from Emma you can find her on Instagram or right here on Substack below.