Ronnie Hellstrom

Ronnie Hellstrom
Personalia
Full name	Folke Ronnie Wallentin Hellstrom
birthday	February 21, 1949
place of birth	Malmo ,  Sweden
date of death	February 6, 2022
place of death	Sweden
size	192 cm
position	goalkeeper
Men's
years	station	Games (goals) 1
1966-1974	Hammarby IF	169 (0)
1974-1984	1 FC Kaiserslautern	266 (0)
1988	GIF Sundsvall	1 (0)
1990	Vasby IK	1 (0)
National team
years	selection	games (goals)
1968-1980	Sweden	77 (0)
1 Only league games are shown.

Folke Ronnie Wallentin Hellström ( February 21, 1949 in Malmö – † February 6, 2022 ) was a Swedish football goalkeeper . Hellstrom was one of the world's best goalkeepers at the time.

career

At his hometown club Hammarby IF , where he had played at youth level since 1962, Hellström made his debut aged 17 on 11 May 1966. Hellström made 171 appearances for the club, finishing behind club legend Lennart Skoglund in 2004 , with whom he spent his first two years also played together, honored as the second most important player in the history of the club. He became known outside of Sweden through the 1974 World Cup , where Sweden finished fifth in the second round of the final. In the same year he turned professional with German Bundesliga club 1. FC Kaiserslautern . His career in Kaiserslautern lasted until 1984. With FCK he reached the finals in the DFB Cup in 1975/76 and in the DFB Cup in 1981 , was 1978/79 autumn champion (finally third, also in 1980). In 1982 he reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup with 1. FCK . In 1975 and 1977 he played a key role in staying up. He played 266 Bundesliga games, making him the foreign goalkeeper with the most games in Bundesliga history.

In the Swedish national team he completed 77 international matches and was voted footballer of the year in Sweden in 1971 and 1978 . He competed in the 1970 , 1974 and 1978 World Championships . The game in the second round of the 1974 World Cup against the Federal Republic of Germany is legendary . The game, in which three goals were scored within three minutes, was lost 2:4 in the rain in Düsseldorf after a hard fight. After retiring, Hellstrom worked as a goalkeeper coach at Hammarby IF and Malmö FF . In 2011 he was inducted into the SFS Hall of Fame .

Ronnie Hellström at the Svenska Idrottsgalan at the Ericsson Globe in Stockholm in January 2014

Private

His son Erland was also a soccer goalkeeper. He held a responsible position for the Swedish subsidiary of Hornbach Baumarkt AG .

In a November 2021 interview with Swedish newspaper Expressen , Hellström stated that he was terminally ill with cancer . The first symptoms appeared a year earlier. A malignant tumor blocks the esophagus. There was also a blood clot in the lungs and an inflammation in the intestines. He last lived in Beddingestrand in southern Sweden and was receiving medical treatment. Hellstrom died at the age of 72 surrounded by his family.

web links

Commons : Ronnie Hellström  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Ronnie Hellstrom in the fussballdaten.de database
• Ronnie Hellstrom in the worldfootball.net database

itemizations

1. ↑ Namnsdag 21 februari – Födelsedagar ( Memento of September 25, 2011)
2. ↑ ^{a b} Ronnie Hellstrom har lamnat oss. In: hammarbyfotboll.se. Hammarby IF , February 6, 2022, retrieved February 6, 2022 (Swedish). 
3. ↑ Peter Ahrens: World Cup thriller against Sweden 1974 - The rain that made the world champion. In: spiegel.de . 21 June 2018, retrieved 7 February 2022 . 
4. ↑ "Tack vare fotbollen har jag mitt yrke". In: Helsingborgs Dagblad. February 20, 2009, archived from the original on January 6, 2018 ; Retrieved 24 September 2020 (Swedish). 
5. ↑ Former world-class goalkeeper - Ronnie Hellstrom terminally ill. In: n-tv.de . SID , November 25, 2021, retrieved November 25, 2021 . 
6. ↑ Svenske landslagsikonen drabbad av obotlig cancer. In: expressen.se. Expressen , 25 November 2021, retrieved 25 November 2021 (Swedish).