Photo: Bildbyrån
Viktor Gyökeres is successful in the Champions League and scores goals for Sweden in the Nations League.
Now his first senior coach Magni Fannberg tells us what it was like to work with him ten years ago.
– You saw that stuff right from the start, he says to Sportbibeln.
As a 17-year-old got Viktor Gyökeres his first senior minutes for Brommapojkarna in the super league. Nine years later, he has sunk Manchester City with a hat-trick in the Champions League, won the Portuguese league with Sporting Lisbon and become a resident of the Swedish national team. Now he is rumored to be taking the next step to one of Europe’s biggest clubs and he is said to be going for a billion sum.
He was Gyökere’s first senior coach
Gyökeres began his football career in Aspudden-Tellus, a local club from a suburb of Stockholm. As a 16-year-old, he took the step to Brommapojkarna, that’s where he got his first playing minutes at senior level. The Icelander Magni Fannbergnow sports director at IFK Norrköping, was head coach of BP’s first team when Gyökeres moved up from the youth ranks.
– You could see from the very beginning what he was made of. He has something very special that not many people have, he says in an interview with Sportbibeln.
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Magni is very keen to emphasize that there are many people involved in the story of Viktor Gyökeres. He is one of several who had the privilege of working with the teenager who is now one of the world’s best strikers.
– I know that people almost compete to tell who has done what, but I know exactly who was involved in the beginning and who contributed the most then. I’m pretty allergic to people taking credit when it comes to people’s football careers, but I can give you the facts. I know exactly when he came to the first training and how it went and who he met. I remember everything, he says.
– There is a guy who came to BP from Aspudden-Tellus who almost trained on a gravel pitch, as I understood it. The reason he came is that David Eklundwho today is a scout for the Brommapojkarna, had followed him and been out there training him as a hired coach. That’s how he came to BP, says Magni.
Had to pick up Gyökeres
Eklund has accompanied Fannberg when he has been around other clubs, such as AIK and Norwegian Brann och Start. He trusted him very much and listened when the scout recommended that he pick up a 17-year-old Viktor Gyökeres in the first team.
— We toiled in the spring (2015 season). Pontus Segerström (33-year-old team captain in BP who died of a brain tumor) had passed away, the finances were a mess and we were playing with a very young team. We were looking for a forward, he says:
– It would have gone to hell for us, I think we were last in the super league. Then David said to me: “I can’t find a forward, but we have Viktor Gyökeres and I can promise you that that kid will score at every level he will play at. Only you give him the chance”. This is so crazy. He said it straight up and down. There weren’t many people David talked about like that, he continues.
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Magni didn’t know much about the youngster, but trusted David Eklund and the youth coach René Bakhuis (who is now a scout in Groningen) was right about him. He was forced to take a gamble, but it turned out to work. Gyökeres had only been training with the first team for a couple of days when he had to make a move into the super one. Twelve days later he scored two goals in the Swedish Cup against IF Sylvia. His top qualities were clearly visible.
– I think that is quite a lot of what he shows today. The first was the aggressiveness, the instinct in the box and the willingness to work. You were immediately hooked. He was not afraid to enter the duels and push away and then he had smartness in the box that not many people have at that age. You could see that stuff right from the start.
However, not everyone in the club was completely convinced that Viktor Gyökeres would be able to make an impression. They were skeptical that a guy from a broad club quite late in his teens came and took a place. It was not common then in BP. Everyone’s references were Albin Ekdal and John Guidettiguys who came from their own ranks from an early age. Gyökeres stood out, in more ways than one.
— I don’t want to throw people under the bus, but many were not as convinced. There was a focus on completely different guys internally in BP: For example, I remember Thomas Isherwood, Joseph Colley and Dejan Kulusevski. They went to Bayern Munich, Chelsea and Atalanta at the time. It was also not that common that such young guys got the opportunity in the first team.
Magni Fannberg’s thoughts on the future
Things continued to go well for Gyökeres in the first team and two years after his debut in BP, he was sold to England’s Brighton. It was then moved to Swansea, St. Pauli and Coventry before he joined Portuguese side Sporting Lisbon and took the world by storm. Magni Fannberg has followed his journey over the years, even though they don’t have much contact today. Just like everyone else in Sweden, he hopes and believes in a big move for Viktor in the future.
– It would be awesome and well-deserved, he says.
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– It’s just speculation, but I think that an ordinary Swede, a supporter, would like to see him in Real Madrid or Barcelona or one of the top teams that we follow in the top leagues. But the guy I knew ten years ago and the environment that was around him then… I don’t think that status, money or club name or the like will be decisive for him. It will be the environment and the opportunities he sees in it for himself that will be decisive if and where he moves, explains Fannberg.
He is happy for Viktor’s sake that it went the way it did. The somewhat quiet teenager who didn’t do much off the pitch has grown into a man who conquered Europe.
– It has been awesome to be there at the beginning and to have seen it there. Then you know that there are many who have contributed to the journey he has made, but I think that, with respect to everyone who has trained him and been close to him, it is himself and his surroundings and David Eklund, there at the beginning , which I can see as the biggest contributing factors to the opportunities he has been given, he says and concludes:
– It is a completely sick journey.
Of course, it is amazing what Viktor Gyökeres has managed to achieve on the big stage in the last two years. He is truly one of the best soccer players in the world right now.
Continue to perform for club and national teams and you can become as big as you want. Hey hey!
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