Nils Liedholm RIP

[dorgie]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nils_Liedholm

 

Nils Liedholm (October 8, 1922 – November 5, 2007) was a Swedish football midfielder and coach, famous for being part of Sweden's "Gre-No-Li" trio of strikers along with Gunnar Gren and Gunnar Nordahl at A.C. Milan and the Swedish national team. As a coach, he was in charge of several teams in Italy, managing for nearly four decades.

 

Club playing career

Liedholm joined his first club, IK Sleipner in 1942. In 1946, he joined IFK Norrköping, a bigger Swedish club with whom he won two Swedish league titles. During his time with Norrköping, he also earned 18 caps for the Swedish national team, winning the gold medal at the 1948 Summer Olympics. This eventually gave him the chance to join Milan in 1949. He made his Serie A debut on September 11, 1949 in a 3-1 win against Sampdoria. In his first season with Milan, the midfielder played 37 games and scored 18 goals. In 1951, Liedholm won the first of his four scudetto titles. Another two titles followed in 1955 and 1957. A player with a club that was having the best spell of its life up to that point, Liedholm also won the Latin Cup in 1951 and 1956. Famously, it took two years playing for Milan until Liedholm misplaced even one pass. The rarity of this event apparently prompted an ovation that lasted five minutes.

 

Liedholm was also one of the first players to realise the importance of fitness to a good performance. Consequently, he put in many more hours of training than other players, saying himself that he did the 100 metres, 3000 metres, javelin, shot put and high jump twice a week.His club career would continue until he was almost 40.

 

 

National team playing career

Having helped Sweden win the gold medal in the 1948 Olympic tournament, Liedholm was the captain of the national squad at the 1958 World Cup, celebrated in his home country. Aged almost 36, he helped Sweden to reach the World Cup final, where the team lost out to a Brazil side led by Didi and 17-year old Pelé. Liedholm scored the opening goal of the final, which makes him the oldest player to score in a World Cup Final; however, Brazil came back and won the match 5-2.

 

 

Coaching career

After he retired from playing, Liedholm enjoyed some time in the backrooms at Milan, before getting promotion for both Verona and then Varese. This brought him to the attention of Fiorentina and then Milan, where he finally took control of the first team. He guided them to their tenth league title in 1979 before moving to become the manager of Roma. Leading talents such as Paulo Roberto Falcão and Bruno Conti, he took them to their second league title ever in 1983 using the zonal marking system, which was unusual in Italy at the time. A year later, his Roma side lost on penalties to Liverpool in the European Cup Final. He also won the Coppa Italia three times with Roma, in 1981, 1983 and 1984.

 

As well as saying that the modern game is much more frantic and fast-paced than when he was involved, Liedholm, always a professional, also observed that "they do not do much to avoid fouling players... It is too easy to stop a player by fouling him. Proper training teaches you how to win the ball without committing a foul, which is much more difficult."

 

After leaving the game (but still living in Italy), Liedholm ran a vineyard for a while together with his children. He died on November 5, 2007 in his home in Cuccaro Monferrato, Province of Alessandria

 

RIP

[Guest Linton]

This post is not viewable to guests.

You can sign in to your account at the login page here

If you do not have an account then you can register here

[The Hitman]

This post is not viewable to guests.

You can sign in to your account at the login page here

If you do not have an account then you can register here

[Cam]

This post is not viewable to guests.

You can sign in to your account at the login page here

If you do not have an account then you can register here