The talk was loudest at the beginning of the season and reached a crescendo when Umeå IK lost in the final of the UEFA Women’s Cup to Arsenal of England.

Umeå can’t win, the whisperers said. They’re not the same team any more.

“That’s right, we’re not the same team, but we keep on winning, don’t we,” said UIK general manager Roland Arnqvist. “We’ve been hearing this for two years, and for two years, everyone has been wrong but us.”

Umeå proved Arnqvist’s point May 27 with a 5-2 win over title pretenders Kopparberg/Göteborg. Brazilian international Marta and Chinese teen star XioaXu each had a brace of goals as Umeå raced out to a 5-0 lead within an hour.

“We could have scored 10 goals in that time,” Arnqvist said. “There was only one team on the field.”

What made the victory even sweeter was the fact Goteborg was one of the teams that talked about supplanted UIK at the top of the Damallsvenskan.

“They said they didn’t think they could take the gold this year, but that they would finish in the top-3,” Arnqvist said. “I think we showed them what it takes to really be a contender in this league.”

Marta and Xioaxu were almost unstoppable in the first half, as the scored four times in a 19-minute span. The Brazilian found the net in the 12th and 31st minutes while Xioxu scored in the 19th and 22nd minutes. UIK captain Karolina Westberg headed in the final goal off a corner kick in the 79th minute.

“Everyone still likes to talk about the players we lost, yet here we are, almost halfway through the season and we’ve still won all eight of our games,” Arnqvist said.

The two-goal performance gave Marta a team-leading eight goals while Xioaxu raised her season tally to four. Arnqvst said the brace was probably most important for the still enigmatic Chinese teenager.

“She can become very, very good but she is still having some problems adjusting to being here,” he said. “The culture between Sweden and China is very different. She’s used to having someone point out everything she has to do and here, it’s not like that. But, she is coming along.”

The same is true for the rest of the team.

“It takes time when you have so many new players,” Westberg said. “You don’t just become a team in one training session or one game. Maybe we’re not where we were last year, yet, but we’re still the top team in Sweden.”

UIK has a four-point advantage over Djurgården in the standings. The two teams meet June 10 in Stockholm.

Djurgården took over second place with a 2-0 win over Malmo. Goals on either side of the break cemented the win for DIF, as Anna Hall scored in the 44th minute while Linda Forsberg scored in the 50th minute.

AIK finally got its first win of the season, beating Falköping 2-0 behind goals from Jessica Juhlin and Nazanin Vaseghpanah. Julin struck in the 16th minute while Vaseghnanah struck eight minutes later. Despite the win, AIK remained stuck in last place in the standings.

Emilia Erixon scored twice to lead Orebro to a 3-1 win over Sunnanå. Erixon tallied in the 9th minute to put Orebro in front. Alexandra Nilsson tied the match in the 32nd minute. Elin Magnusson put Orebro back on top at the 56-minute mark while Erixon collected her second goal of the match three minutes from time.

Linköping rallied from a first-half deficit to claim a 3-2 win over visiting Bälinge. Nigerian international Maureen Mmadu gave LFC the lead after 10 minutes. Annette Kent tied the gave for Bälinge in the 24th minute while Sanna Talonen put the visitors in front one minute before the interval.

Linköping tied the game in the 62nd minute when Sara Larsson struck while Josefine Öqvist scored the game winner in the 70th minute.

Hammarby got an early goal and hung on to knock off QBIK Karlstad 1-0 on the road.