Midway through the first half, Hacken's teenage centre-forward Felicia Schroder slotted home the only goal of the game after great work from Monica Jusu Bah, who got away from Hammarby captain, Alice Carlsson, en route to setting up her teammate.
Read Flashscore's full report of the first leg of the final here.
After the match, Tindell and Carlsson both spoke exclusively to Flashscore. American Tindell was keen to point out how there's still a long way to go in the final and how difficult it was to come to such a familiar opponent and manage the match.
There’s two cliches that come to mind - “it’s only half-time” and “one hand on the trophy”, which one is coming to your mind?
"I’m definitely the “it’s only half-time” sort of character! You could say I really try not to get ahead of myself. When you play long enough you know that football can take the most crazy turns and twists, and I’ve definitely experienced the positive and negative side of that. And if anything, today taught us how strong Hammarby are, how they are just as eager as us to win the trophy so, yeah, definitely not one hand on the trophy just yet, I want 90 minutes of the next match and then two hands on it!"
Did today prove that coming into a big final against a side you know really well is better than facing the somewhat unknown?
"It’s definitely a different kind of mental space to be in. I mean, going through the tournament and playing Inter, Breidablik, playing Frankfurt, I can say it’s like a mouthwash for the brain because you get out of the league and you get exposed to so many different types of football and different types of players, so, the mental preparation is a little bit different, I would say. But yeah, crazy that Hammarby and us are in the final now and that we’re going to play each other five times this year! I don’t even know how to take that in, so I’m just trying to do one game at a time and take it from there!"
"In the first 30 minutes you really seemed to expose their back three. Is that something you were actively trying to work on, or is it just how the game panned out?"
"I think the plan was always to really try and start strong on an away pitch when they’re playing at home in front of so many of their fans. I can’t give enough credit to Hammarby fans, they really support. But it was always in our mind to play strong, whatever the match picture would be. If it was us winning a lot of defensive duels, or working really hard in the defensive actions, or if we had those opportunities to get forward and get in behind. So, in our head it was whatever they are going to throw at us, we want to handle it well in the ‘answer’."
The way Hammarby attacked in the second half forced you to sit back a little bit more - was it more of a case of being desperate to preserve the lead and take it back to Gothenburg, rather than push for a second goal?
"Yeah, I think that’s always a really delicate balance, because sitting back you get exposed to so much - different kinds of attacks, and it’s really stressful, and then you want to be in the match, you want to be threatening, you want to be dangerous. And the second half, of course, it was them really pushing aggressively to get that equaliser, it was so important for them on their home pitch in this first match. I think it was kind of a mix of both things - trying to preserve the win, of course we wanted to do that, and then just unfortunately not getting up in behind them as much as we wanted to. Sometimes it’s like that and I don’t really know the answer just yet, but I think once we go through the analysis we will get our answers for that."
You say it’s only half-time, but surely you must be confident with the home leg to come?
"I really like that we did the away match first and that we still get to play at home, I think that helps a lot. I’m confident in our team, we really come together playing strong football and getting the win, and that’s really nice to say, but I would never say it’s 100% a sure thing, absolutely not!"
After a disappointing first-leg loss, Alice Carlsson perhaps unsurprisingly had few words for the media, but the 30-year-old believes the key to a turnaround in the second leg on Friday 1st May is being more clinical when opportunities arise.
Your team seemed like they were under pressure in defence early on, is that where the game was won and lost?
"We know that the players up front (for Hacken) have a lot of speed, so we have to stop them, but they are good players."
What did you say as captain to your team at half-time or during the game? Because you did tighten things up at the back and had some dangerous moments later on.
"Just that we have to keep going and keep the ball and push them down, so we can create chances from there."
We are only midway through the final, how confident are you that you can turn things around?
"We can bring a lot of things with us to Friday’s games, because we created not a lot of chances but, chances! So, we have to be a little bit more clinical in the box next time."