Umeå secure Swedish Super Cup

Umeå IK have begun a month in which they hope they will regain the UEFA Women's Cup by starting their domestic season with victory in the inaugural Swedish Super Cup.

Edlund goals
The league champions, who take on Arsenal LFC for the European title on 21 and 29 April, were up against Swedish Cup holders Linköpings FC in Norrkoping. Umeå were playing their first competitive game since the retirement of stalwarts Malin Moström and Anna Sjöström, and were without injured forward Hanna Ljungberg, and found themselves 1-0 down at the break through Maria Aronsson's 16th-minute goal. Umeå, who introduced Chinese striker Ma Xiaoxu defender for her debut after the interval, equalised through Karolina Westberg six minutes into the second half and Madeleine Edlund struck on 69 and 83 minutes to secure a 3-1 win against the only club to beat them in a domestic match last year in the Swedish Cup semi-finals.

League season starts
With their first trophy of 2007 secure, Umeå start their title defence on 11 April away against QBIK of Karlstad. They began their pre-season fixtures in late February with two matches against last season's Norwegian runners-up SK Trondheims-Ørn, drawing 0-0 and winning 3-1. They then won 3-0 at Sunnanå SK and beat the Swedish women's Under-16 team 4-2 before travelling to Turkey for a training camp last week.

Marta content
There they lost 2-1 to Russia before a 3-3 draw with Russian champions WFC Rossiyanka. Brazilian striker Marta, who equalised as Umeå came back from 3-1 down in the latter match on Thursday, told uefa.com: "[The friendly against Rossiyanka] was a very aggressive match - they run a lot and are extremely forceful. But it was also a very good test for us, and hopefully we won't make the same mistakes we did in this game in future matches. Our main goal was to make the final corrections and tweak our game play with the Swedish league and the UEFA Women's Cup final in mind."