Hej,

It was peculiar but more moving than I expected to see international football icons such as David Beckham and Roy Hodgson fly in to attend Sven-Göran Eriksson’s funeral in the small, rural town of Torsby, where the late Swedish football coach grew up.

While Eriksson’s record was hardly pristine – major football accolades mixed with scandals and affairs – he was much-loved in his hometown in the Värmland region.

He returned that love. Eriksson – or let’s just call him Svennis, as he’s known in Sweden – never lost his Värmland accent. In between moving around the world to coach teams such as Lazio, England, Mexico, Fiorentina, Manchester City and so on, he always returned back to Värmland, back to Torsby and the nearby town of Sunne.

You could see the traces of this in his final departure as well – several aspects of his funeral were apparently orchestrated by Svennis himself, from the decision to open the ceremony to the public and show it on a big screen outside the church, to the food served at the service for invited guests such as Beckham: motti and molusk.

Motti is a type of porridge brought by Finns to Värmland in the 1600s, served with bacon and lingonberries. Molusk is, thankfully, much less scary than it sounds: it’s a chocolate cake, also from Värmland and served by the local bakery in Torsby.

The funeral was even broadcast and live-blogged by Aftonbladet, Sweden’s biggest newssite, which gives you an idea of Svennis’s popularity in his home country.

In other news

Shorter days make it much harder to get enough vitamin D during the colder months of the year in Sweden. Is it worth taking supplements during the winter?

There’s a lot of budget news at the moment, including plans to double the civil defence budget and allocating over 4.4 billion kronor to restricting migration, including giving 350,000 kronor to refugees who choose to return home voluntarily.

The government had a major reshuffle this week, moving some of the top roles around. I explain what’s happening on the latest episode of our Sweden in Focus podcast.

We’ve also written a few guides to the reshuffle, including:

What you need to know about Sweden’s new foreign minister.

What you need to know about Sweden’s new migration minister.

What are the Swedish government’s key priorities for the year ahead?

Sweden’s new migration minister said in one of his first comments that integration is key to creating a better life for everyone in the country, which made me think of this article we wrote a while back based on The Local’s readers’ suggestions.

What steps do you need to follow to become a Swedish citizen? In this week’s episode of Sweden in Focus Extra – for Membership+ subscribers – my colleagues discussed what documentation you need to provide when applying for Swedish citizenship.

Becky wrote about a village in northern Sweden that’s paying people 10,000 kronor to move there. That’s not even enough money to cover the move, but maybe if you’re thinking of moving anyway, it’s enough to make you consider Glommersträsk.

Have a good weekend,

Emma

Inside Sweden is our weekly newsletter for members which gives you news, analysis and, sometimes, takes you behind the scenes at The Local. It’s published each Saturday and with Membership+ you can also receive it directly to your inbox.