Torbjörn Nilsson is one of our greatest.
But it could actually become a completely different sport for the football legend.
If it wasn’t for a special event when he was 11 years old.
Torbjörn Nilsson is best known as “God” on the West Coast and that really says all you need to know about his enormous status in football Sweden. He is undoubtedly one of our greatest in Sweden, with a goal danger that few have been able to match.
“God’s” incredible career
Torbjörn Nilsson was the great attacking star during IFK Göteborg’s heyday in the 80s, and he was a strong contributor to IFK Göteborg winning the Uefa Cup in both 1982 and 1987. There were also adventures abroad in PSV Eindhoven and FC Kaiserslatuern, but that is for the years in Blåvitt for which Nilsson is most remembered, and to this day he has an almost unbeatable cult status within the club.
After his playing career, Nilsson was a coach for many years, but today he is concerned about the state of Swedish football. Nilsson is very involved in young people and that children should continue to play football and other sports even at older ages, when more and more people quit as 11- and 12-year-olds. Nilsson has many people pointed out how important it is to have the right type of leadership for everyone who trains young people, and that you should never put unnecessary pressure on the children, but that you should always put the children and their well-being first.
Strong words
Torbjörn Nilsson himself has said that he also played hockey as a child, and if things had been different it might have been with stick and puck that Nilsson made a venture in his teens. But everything changed when he was eleven years old.
– I was nervous. I fell and then my coach shouted: “Nilsson! Back in.” And then he scolded me because I had dull skates, Nilsson told Sveriges Radio earlier this year.
Nilsson will always carry the incident with him.
– I think it is terrible that children should go to sports and experience it. And I think that continues to this day.
Nilsson therefore, in view of his own experiences and especially in view of the grim figures that children stop sports earlier and earlier, has important advice for all leaders in the country.
– When you have asked the children why they quit, it is because it is no longer fun.
– You have to be there for the sake of the children.
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