Jonas Thern

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Jonas Thern
Personnel
Surname Jonas Magnus Thern
birthday March 20, 1967
place of birth Värnamo ,  Sweden
position midfield
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
1984 IFK Värnamo 21 (8)
1985-1987 Malmö FF 38 (5)
1988 FC Zurich 5 (1)
1988-1989 Malmö FF 31 (5)
1989-1992 Benfica Lisbon 71 (8)
1992-1994 SSC Naples 48 (1)
1994-1997 AS Roma 59 (3)
1997-1999 Glasgow Rangers 23 (5)
National team
Years selection Games (goals)
1987-1997 Sweden 75 (6)
Stations as a trainer
Years station
IFK Värnamo
2002-2003 Halmstads BK
2010 IFK Värnamo
1 Only league games are given.

Jonas Magnus Thern (born March 20, 1967 in Värnamo ) is a former Swedish football player and coach. The defender , who played 75 international matches for the Swedish national team between 1987 and 1997 , won national championship titles in three countries and took part in two world championships and one European championship final.

Career

Career start in Sweden and a flying visit abroad

Thern started playing football in his home town at IFK Värnamo . In 1985 he had offers from Östers IF in nearby Växjö and Malmö FF . Since Östers IF was in the relegation battle of Allsvenskan , he decided to move to Malmö . There Roy Hodgson took over the training and under his direction Thern and the team took first place in the Allsvenskan in the following three years. In the subsequent championship finals, MFF reached the final in 1986 and 1987 , with the championship title being won against AIK in the first year , while in 1987 IFK Göteborg prevailed due to the away goals rule . 1 draw against: Parallel to Thern played in the Swedish national selection, in which he on 14 October 1987 at 1 German national team with goals from Pierre Littbarski and Glenn Hysén in Gelsenkirchen Park Stadium debut.

At the beginning of 1988 Thern left Sweden for the first time and moved to Switzerland for FC Zurich . In his debut on March 6th of that year in the championship game against Martigny-Sports , he scored the goal in a 3-1 win to mean a 2-0 lead. Under coach Timo Konietzka , he played in five league games until mid-April and then returned to Sweden.

At the side of Stefan Schwarz , Roger Ljung and Martin Dahlin , Thern again reached first place in the league with MFF in 1988 and moved into the final of the Swedish championship after two wins in the semifinals over Örgryte IS . After a 0-0 draw in the first leg against Djurgårdens IF , they achieved a 7-3 win in the second leg, which meant the second win of the Von Rosens Cup in Thern's career. In the following season, Thern and his team again had a dominant role in the league, but he decided to change clubs in the summer and went to the Portuguese club Benfica Lisbon , who had signed a Swedish coach with Sven-Göran Eriksson . Without him, MFF moved into the final for the championship title as leader of the table, but drew the short straw against the table runner-up of the regular season IFK Norrköping on penalties . Nevertheless, the year was successful for Thern, shortly before the end of the year, the Swedish daily Aftonbladet and Svenska Fotbollförbundet awarded him the Guldbollen as the best football player of the year.

In top European football

With the reigning Portuguese champions, Thern fitted into the regular formation. With the club he reached the final of the 1989/90 European Cup , which the final opponent AC Milan won on May 23, 1990 in the Vienna Prater Stadium with a goal by Frank Rijkaard . He was also part of the squad at the 1990 World Cup tournament in Italy, and played two tournaments. After three 1: 2 defeats against Brazil , Scotland and Costa Rica , he and his team were eliminated from the competition at the end of the group stage.

In the season after the tournament, Thern managed to win the 29th championship in Portugal alongside his compatriots Mats Magnusson and Stefan Schwarz with Benfica, Thern's first title win outside of Sweden. In the following season he reached with the team at the last competition held under the name of the European Cup of National Champions 1991/92, the newly introduced group stage, in which the eventual winners FC Barcelona and Sparta Prague came third. In the meantime , Thern has risen to become the team captain of the national team. In the summer of 1992, Thern took part with the national team in the European Championship finals in their own country . The selection team knew how to surprise and reached the semi-finals as group winners before the later titleholders Denmark , France and England , in which they failed against Germany.

After the tournament Thern moved to the Italian Serie A on. At SSC Napoli , which had been without his star Diego Maradona since the previous year due to a doping ban , he played alongside players such as Careca , Daniel Fonseca and Gianfranco Zola . However, the club's sporting and financial decline could not be avoided. In 1994, the 1989 UEFA Cup winners had to give up a number of their players, so that Thern moved on to AS Roma within the league in the state capital .

As captain, Thern led the Swedish national team to the semi-finals at the 1994 World Cup . In the 0-1 defeat in the semi-final against Brazil, which was decided by a goal from Romário in the 80th minute of the game, he was sent off in the 63rd minute of the game. As a result, he missed the third place match that ended in a 4-0 win over Bulgaria . Following the tournament, the daily newspaper Svenska Dagbladet awarded the team the Svenska Dagbladet gold medal .

With the two-time Italian champions AS Roma to date, Thern initially reached places in the UEFA Cup . The greatest success there was in the 1995/96 UEFA Cup reaching the quarter-finals, in which the team failed in extra time to Slavia Prague . After only reaching twelfth place in the league in the 1996/97 season , the defender decided to change clubs and left Italy without winning the title.

New club Therns became in the summer of 1997 the Scottish club Glasgow Rangers . After the club had won nine championships in a row under coach Walter Smith , the team around Brian Laudrup , Richard Gough and Ally McCoist reached second place behind rivals Celtic in the first year of Sweden at the club . In the following season, the Dutchman Dick Advocaat took over as the first non-Scots coach at the club. Thern, however, was sidelined for a long time due to injury, so that he only came to one league game and one UEFA Cup appearance at the side of players like Jörg Albertz , Gennaro Gattuso and Giovanni van Bronckhorst . After his contract expired in the summer of 1999, Advocaat wanted to keep him, but Thern decided to retire due to another foreseeable operation.

Short career as a trainer in Sweden

Thern returned to Sweden after the end of his active career and took over the coaching position at his hometown club IFK Värnamo. With the club he rose to the third division in 2000 , where he managed to stay up. He then took over from the 2002 season as a coach at the first division club Halmstads BK from Tom Prahl , who had switched to Malmö FF. There he could not build on the successes of his predecessor and only reached mid-tier positions with the club. In October 2003 he ended his coaching engagement and gave the reason that he wanted to look after his family more. In October 2009 he was again committed to his home club IFK Värnamo from the third division season 2010 as a coach. At the end of the season he rose to the second-rate Superettan with the team that included his son Simon Thern , who was on loan from Helsingborgs IF . Nevertheless, he resigned at his own request in autumn 2010.

Thern is currently teaching at the John Bauergymnasiet in Värnamo.

Achievements and Awards

Individually

  • Swedish football player of the year: 1989

At club level

With the national team

  • World championship third: 1994
  • Semi-final European Championship: 1992

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ dn.se: "Jonas Thern lämnar Halmstad" (accessed on July 16, 2009)
  2. ↑ sydsvenskan.se: "Thern tar över Värnamo" (accessed on 23 August 2012)
  3. ↑ nt.se: "Thern lämnar tränarjobb i Värnamo" (accessed on 23 August 2012)
personal data
SURNAME Thern, Jonas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thern, Jonas Magnus (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swedish soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH March 20, 1967
PLACE OF BIRTH Värnamo , Sweden