Torbjörn Nilsson was not only a fantastic striker.
As a coach, he gave a valuable tip – which star Lisa Ek always had with her.
– I will always love Torbjörn because he made me perform the football that was locked inside me, she says.
When many experts, profiles and coaches from the 1980s get to pick out the best Swedish player, almost everyone answers the same. Torbjörn Nilsson scored 332 goals in IFK Göteborg, was a key figure in the team that won the Uefa Cup in 1982 – and he was even better during the European adventure four years later.
Many years as a coach
Torbjörn Nilsson was nicknamed “God” for how skilled he was on the pitch, and he will always have a special place in all blue and white hearts. But Torbjörn Nilsson wasn’t just a cheerleader on the field – he was also on the sidelines. “Gud” started his coaching career right after he stopped playing, and he is most associated with the years in Kopparbergs/Göteborg in the Damallsvenskan, where he was from 2008 to 2013.
There he had, among other things, the profile of Lisa Ek, who revealed that Nilsson was not like any other coach. Among other things, “God” did not believe in physical tests, and he went more by feeling than numbers and statistics. One day he asked Ek about how she prepares for the matches.
“I sleep 8 hours and 25 minutes a day before match day, 25 of those minutes during the day if the match is played in the afternoon. I eat fish and rice 4 hours before the start of the match and I take a walk in the morning, if it’s a home match, I take the car to the meeting so as not to burn anything extra,” answered Ek, according to a text on Vi Lirare.
Brilliant advice
The answer from Torbjörn Nilsson was not what she had expected. He suggested that she go away from just about every routine.
“I want you not to even think about the game until a quarter of an hour before you step onto the field. You sleep until you wake up, you eat what you feel like, then walk or take the bike or car to the meeting, whatever you feel like. You are so serious in everything you do, but perhaps the most serious thing you can do is not prepare at all. I take full responsibility for if you perform poorly,” replied Nilsson, according to Ek.
Ek did as she was told. She slept in, she only ate when she got hungry – and barely listened to the tactics briefing. How it went?
“We won 5-0 against Umeå, I scored 2 goals and was man of the match. Torbjörn had helped me build faith in myself and trust in my feelings. That was the key,” writes Ek.
Ek ends the text by saying that she does not agree with everything that Torbjörn Nilsson taught. But:
“I will always love Torbjörn because he made me perform the football that was locked inside me, until the day I met God.”
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