PHOTO: Bildbyrån + Thomas Nordahl/Västerbotten museum
He was hailed as a god in Italy.
But at home in Sweden, he was humiliated and forgotten.
Gunnar Nordahl deserved so much more and should be seen as Sweden’s greatest ever.
This is a comment. The opinions are the writer’s own.
SVT does it again with another fantastic episode of “The History of Football” on Wednesday evening. And this time there is full focus on one of history’s very best, Swedish goalscorers in the unforgettable Gunnar Nordahl.
Nordahl historical
It all started in small Hörnefors IF, where Gunnar made his way among a whole bunch of Nordahl brothers. On the football pitch, he was a terrific goal scorer and on the side he saved lives as a fireman.
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After scoring goals in both Degerfors and IFK Norrköping, winning the Allsvenskan shooting league four times and shooting Sweden to Olympic gold in 1948, Gunnar Nordahl made history in 1949. When Milan opened up the big wallet and made him Sweden’s very first football professional in history .
The success Gre-No-Li
Nordahl moved to Italy and continued to rack up goals. He became “Il Bisonte” (The Bison Ox) for all Italians and with his chain colleagues Gunnar Gren and Nils Liedholm they conquered the entire boot country as “Gre-No-Li”.
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To this day, it is difficult to understand exactly how good the blue-yellow trio and above all Nordahl really were when so much has happened to football since the 1950s. But numbers never lie and it’s brutally good statistics that were delivered in the red and black shirt.
Gunnar became a god
Gunnar Nordahl won the goalscoring league with 35 goals in his debut season in Serie A, a goalscoring record that stood for 66 years. He won the Italian top-scoring league five times and scored a staggering 225 goals in 291 games, making him the third-highest Serie A goalscorer of all time.
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In Italy he became a god who was worshiped by everyone, even Swedes made a pilgrimage to Milan to see the mythical bison with their own eyes. But at home in Sweden, he was forgotten and pushed away due to a huge betrayal from his home country.
Bigger than Zlatan
The Swedish national team ported all professional players at this time and it ruined Nordahl’s legacy forever. He was one of the world’s absolute best players but was never allowed to play a WC tournament with the blue-yellow national team shirt on – WC 50 and WC 54 he was blacklisted and WC 58 at home he was too old and injured.
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It is always easy to say “what if”, but if Gunnar Nordahl had been allowed to play more in the Swedish national team, we would still today see him as Sweden’s best footballer of all time. Bigger than itself Zlatan Ibrahimovicwe can promise that.
READ MORE: Gunnar Nordahl’s incredibly beautiful gesture to the little sick boy – makes everyone’s hearts melt: “What a hero!”
He won the Golden Ball in 1947, Olympic gold in 1948 and scored an incredible 43 goals in just 33 international matches. But then there wasn’t a single more international game for Blågult and we missed out on world star Gunnar Nordahl’s very best football year, it’s still a big sadness for Swedish national team football.
What do you think of Gunnar Nordahl as a footballer? Share the article and have your say!
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