Samuel Brolin

Samuel Brolin spent five years on AIK's books without making a single senior appearance for the club, the entire spell played out on loan elsewhere. Between 2018 and 2023 he was sent out four times — to Vasalunds IF, Akropolis IF, Mjällby AIF and, finally, AC Horsens in Denmark — while AIK's first team went about its business without him, including the 2018 Allsvenskan title, won while he was not part of the squad.

The loan at Akropolis IF in 2020 was his busiest, 31 appearances across the Superettan and Svenska Cupen with seven clean sheets. At Mjällby AIF he built on that, playing 29 Allsvenskan matches in 2022 and keeping eight clean sheets, having made only 10 appearances the year before. The move to AC Horsens in 2023 brought just three games in the Danish Superliga and no clean sheets, and by December that year his contract with AIK had run out.

Kalmar FF signed him as a free agent that December, and Brolin went straight into the starting role for the 2024 Allsvenskan season.

Brolin's underage career with Sweden reads as a steady progression rather than a breakthrough: seven caps at U17 level, nine at U19, and eleven at U21, spread across 2016 to 2023. He has yet to be capped by the senior national team.