Malmo's Europa League qualifying tie against Hibernian is both a personal quest and a professional obligation for Simon Hollyhead.

The English coach is one of two assistants to Rikard Norling, the Swedish club's manager, and the moment the draw was made he was taken back to his childhood. Hollyhead was a season ticket holder at West Bromwich Albion and was a particular fan of Jimmy Nicholl, who is now on the Easter Road coaching staff. "How strange it is that 28 years on from watching a guy play, I'm now going to get the opportunity to meet him," Hollyhead said.

The Malmo players were quick to ask Hollyhead about Hibs, assuming he must know all about the Scottish side since he comes from England. His knowledge stretched to a general appreciation that the Edinburgh side will be strong opponents, and the last three weeks have been spent trying to gather information.

The Swedes rely heavily on strikers Magnus Eriksson and Tokelo Rantie, with former Rangers and Sweden midfielder Robert Prytz having tipped the latter to "make a big impact". An essentially young side, there are several players still at the club who faced Rangers in the Champions League qualifying round in 2011, when the Swedes won 2-1 on aggregate. Hollyhead, too, was part of the set-up at that stage, having moved to Sweden in 2010.

Malmo currently sit top of the Swedish Allsvenskan, one point ahead of Helsingborgs, who have a game in hand. They are 16 matches into their season, and some players have remarked on their tiredness after having played four games in 10 days ahead of tonight's first leg in Sweden. Hollyhead will have worked on that in his capacity as the club's senior fitness coach, with his background as a sports scientist being his route into football.

Hollyhead came close to joining West Brom before a three-year spell at Warwickshire County Cricket club then a period at the Football Association. The moment he found out that Malmo wanted to employ him he recalled the 1979 side, which reached the European Cup final only to lose to Nottingham Forest.

"That's such an incredible story, the guys were semi-pro or part-time," he said. "It put them on the map and many of those guys are still involved. Straight away when I was told Malmo, I thought of the 1979 final and the diving header by Trevor Francis. I don't mention that too many times, though."

Malmo won the title during the Hollyhead's first season in Sweden, before manager Roland Nilsson left and was replaced by Rikard Norling, who promoted the Englishman to assistant manager, alongside Daniel Andersson, the former Sweden internationalist. The Englishman believes sports science is becoming an increasingly important part of football, as reflected by his position at Malmo and Adam Owen, who was head of sports science and fitness at Rangers, becoming one of David Weir's assistants at Sheffield United.

However, Hollyhead is not convinced Malmo have a significant advantage by being midway through their season. "There is greater emphasis on training schedules and regimes, and linking in the training programmes, because gone are the days when you train for the sake of training," he said. "Training time is so precious, because of the intensity of games and time between them.

"Gone are the days when the manager can do everything, because the demands on them are so great. In terms of who it benefits [when teams are at different stages of the season], that's open to debate. Teams lose and gain players from the previous campaign [so] transfer window activity plays a part."