On a electric Thursday night at Fir Park, 8,100 fans watched their team punch their ticket to European competition — and then stayed to celebrate. Motherwell FC beat HJK Helsinki 3-1 on aggregate, sealing a place in the Conference League play-offs with a stunning 2-0 home win. Among those cheering was Ibrahim Said, whose two solo goals had the crowd twisting and shouting. Said, a Nigerian winger, has drawn comparisons so bold that former teammate Andy Halliday joked he would "be playing for Barcelona if he could score."
But while fans were already searching flight deals to Germany, manager Alfred Johansson was thinking about something much closer to home: a Scottish League Cup match against Stenhousemuir on Sunday.
"A final for us," Johansson called it.
The Swedish manager has been remarkably calm since taking over from Jens Berthel Askou, who left last year to coach Toulouse in France. In just six matches, Johansson remains unbeaten — no small feat after Motherwell lost several key players, including Elijah Just, Elliot Watt, Callum Slattery, and Calum Ward, to other clubs.
Halliday, who played under Askou and jumped out of his seat watching Said's second goal against Helsinki, said the new boss has picked up seamlessly where his predecessor left off. "A lot of the fundamentals are very similar," Halliday told BBC Sportsound. But what really excites him is the bigger picture. "I love what Motherwell stand for, how progressive they are, trying to do it a completely different way that's proven, surely to everyone, that it can work."
The club has bet heavily on youth development and an attacking style of football — a gamble that is paying off. Still, Halliday thinks one missing piece could make them even stronger: a reliable goalscorer upfront. "If they sign one or two more players at the top end of the pitch," he said, "I think they could be every bit as good as last year."
For Johansson, the credit goes to the fans filling the stands week after week. "There's an energy at Fir Park that transmits down to the pitch," he said after the Helsinki win. "It makes us better, it makes us stronger."
Motherwell return to Fir Park on Thursday before heading to Germany, where they will face Freiburg in the next round. But first comes Stenhousemuir — and for Johansson, that is the only thing that matters right now.