The secrets behind a football miracle: How Swedish minnows Mjallby from tiny fishing village of 1,485 people pulled off title win to reach Champions League qualifying

Taking a club from a village of 1,485 next to the Baltic Sea to an unprecedented league title and Champions League qualifying - well, it sounds more like a deranged Football Manager save than reality. 

But Swedish minnows Mjallby have just pulled off one of football's greatest shocks, one that might even surpass Leicester's extraordinary 2015-16 Premier League title.

Less than a decade ago the club were on the cusp relegation to the fourth tier and bankruptcy. On Monday night, cake and champagne spattered the walls in celebration of becoming champions. 

The expressions on the players' faces were of disbelief as much as elation. 

The tiny club from a fishing village, managed by a head coach who was once the local school headmaster with a scout who doubled up as the postman, made fools of the nation's established heavyweight clubs such as local rivals Malmo. 

Malmo (a 90 minute drive away) is 250 times bigger than Mjallby with a budget 85 percent greater. 

If they go a step further and make it through Champions League qualifying next year, the likes of Real Madrid and Liverpool could have to visit the 6,750-capacity Strandvallen Stadium in the village of Hallevik. 

Until now, the only public record of note from Hallevik was seven herring fishermen drowning 162 years ago in 1982. 

But the football team has now put them on the map.  

'I have a hard time finding equivalent achievements, especially considering they’re from this really small municipality,' Swedish sports journalist Olof Lundh told CNN Sports.

'You can’t really compare because Leicester still had really wealthy owners.' 

'They shouldn’t even be in the top division. Just being in the top division is impressive, and being in the top half of the top division is super impressive and then winning the title, it’s incredible.'

So in a football landscape dominated by clubs with the highest wage bills, revenues and transfer budgets, how did Mjallby pull it off? 

Magnus Emeus is the chairman and bought the club back in 2015 after returning home from making his money as a businessman abroad. 

Lundh describes Emeus' philosophy as boiling down to 'we need to measure everything', leaning heavily on data to find an edge, as the likes of Brighton and Brentford have done in the Premier League. 

He wanted to use the same principles that had brought him success with companies across Europe.  

'The size of the club, our conditions, our financial muscle — to one year beat all the others, I think no one has been near this,' the owner said. 

But it isn't just a Moneyball story - annual turnover is only £2.3m. The size of the village makes the entire community feel part of the club and vice versa. 

Many of the players live in the same apartment block as each other and team spirit is off the charts. 

'Another mantra I talk about is, we need to be best on the things which are free,' Emeus explained. 'We can have a better team spirit than Real Madrid... we can prepare better for a game than Manchester United.'

'No egos but lots of fun', is the dressing room mantra according to defender Tom Pettersson.

Sporting director Hasse Larsson was a player, then manager before moving into the boardroom and the feeling of living and breathing everything Mjallby is said to infect everyone else. He's survived a brain tumour and prostate cancer and is viewed as the organisation's soul. 

In combination with the Mjallby obsessives at the heart of the club, recruitment has been key.

Karl Marius Aksum, who has a PhD in Visual Perception in Elite Football, was identified as the kind of bright tactical mind to improve the team after collecting a following on social media posting about his ideas. 

'It's no surprise that we're playing a good style of football,' Aksum said earlier this season. 'It's a surprise, of course, that we're leading the table.

'For everyone around the village, in the shops, in the countryside when I take a walk or a run, they are living a fairytale. They can't believe what's happening.'

Aksum's background in studying visual perception has given him expertise in the key area of 'scanning' in modern football, which is the ability of players to have an exact picture of team-mates and opposition in their mind before they receive the ball. 

'It's a critical skill in modern football because the movements of the players are faster and the press is better, so you have to update your surroundings all the time,' Aksum told BBC Sport.

'It's especially important for players in the middle of the pitch, because they could have important information 360 degrees around them.'

'It makes better passers and better players both offensively and defensively.' The team play an attacking, expansive brand of football but are also helped by their remote location and have won 22 games in a row at home.

The bitter Baltic wind after incredibly long journeys for the rest of the Swedish top flight to play Mjallby are the Scandinavian version of the old 'wet, windy night at Stoke', albeit with a more progressive opposition.

'They're probably sick and tired of never ever getting to the stadium,' Emeus said. 'You drive and you drive and you drive and you drive, and then finally you either have to drive into the Baltic Sea or into the arena.'

And David hasn't just beaten the Allsvenskan Goliaths this season - they've flattened them. 

Mjallby have only lost once all season, wrapped up the title with three games to go and are 11 points clear of second-place Hammarsby. 

Monday night's 2-0 win over IFK Göteborg sealed the deal and head coach Anders Torstensson said: 'I have a hard time putting it into words, I can honestly say. It’s so incredibly powerful.'

'To stand here as Swedish champions with little bloody Mjallby. It’s unreal.'

If Mjallby were to make it through three rounds of Champions League qualifiers next summer, they would become the smallest side ever to reach the tournament, a tenth of the size of Unirea Urziceni from Romania (currently the smallest minnows to ever take part). 

For a land synonymous with folklore and mythology, the tiny village's sporting fairytale must top them all.