It appears that Pontus Jansson’s time at Brentford has served him well, at least when it comes to his responsibilities as a team captain.
Now the main leader of the team at Malmö FF, the centre-back was behind the most recent activity, some sort of initiation, for the newcomers in the first-team: them having start the training session in their underwear.
That’s according to Fotbollskanalen, who have an interview with various members of the Swedish team, currently on training camp in Estepona in Spain.
Five players ‘had to start the training undressed’, before being given shorts and shirts by the kit man a few minutes later and then completing the session fully clothed.
The decision to do that even surprised the manager, Henrik Rydström, with explained that it is a common occurrence for newcomers and young players to do certain things in order to achieve some sort of differentiation within the squad.
It seems the young players were the ones targeted this time, and the belief is that it helps brings the players together, something Pontus Jansson has had to deal with over his career, whether it be at Brentford or elsewhere.
Rydström explained there is ‘always a risk that some player may feel that it is not funny’, but that wasn’t the case this time, especially as it’s all calmed down from the days when he was a player having to go through these rituals, describing those as ‘brutal’.
The timing wasn’t ideal, either, as a ‘large number of Malmö FF sponsors’ had flown down to Spain for a network meeting.
This is when the former Brentford defender gave his two cents, and explained the team had been thinking about how to best deal with these matters in order to ‘end up on the right side of the line’.
He said: “I’ve been through things that are 10 times worse. It’s part of football and an old culture that has become much better. I scaled things down to a reasonable level in Brentford, for example, so that it is at a reasonable level. I’m completely convinced that those who were involved saw it as a fun thing for a five-minute period.”
