Erik Hamrén

Erik Hamrén (2013)

Erik Hamrén (born June 27, 1957 in Ljusdal ) is a Swedish football coach . After he won the Swedish Cup with AIK and Örgryte IS , the Danish with Aalborg BK and the Norwegian championship title with Rosenborg BK , the Swedish Football Association hired him as national coach in 2009. He was until 2016. He is currently the coach of the Icelandic national soccer team .

Career

Hamrén played soccer himself in his youth; he ended his active career at the age of 23.

Under his direction as coach, the A-youth team from IFK Sundsvall won the Swedish championship title in 1983. He then moved to the men's division. He coached the third division side Enköpings SK before he was committed in 1989 by the second division side Väsby IK . This was followed by further engagements with the second division clubs IF Brommapojkarna and Vasalunds IF , before he was first commissioned in 1994 at Degerfors IF to look after a team in the Allsvenskan .

In 1995 Hamrén went to AIK and reached the final of the Svenska Cup with the club in the summer , which AIK lost 1: 3 to Halmstads BK . In his second year at AIK he reached the final again, this time Aik won the Svenska Cup 1-0 against Malmö FF . In the 1996/97 European Cup Winners' Cup , he reached the quarter-finals with AIK, where they failed at FC Barcelona . In 1997 he reached the cup final for the third time in a row and the title was defended by a 2-1 win over IF Elfsborg . Since the success in the league failed to materialize, he was replaced after the 1997 season at AIK by Stuart Baxter . Hamrén then signed on with league rivals Örgryte IS . After the relegation was only managed in the first year, he led the club in the top group in the following seasons. In 2000 he won the Swedish Cup for the third time in his career.

In 2004 Hamrén was looking for a new challenge and left Sweden. His first foreign coaching station was the Danish club Aalborg BK . In 2008 he led the club to the third championship title in the club's history. During the current season he announced his move to the Norwegian top club Rosenborg Trondheim (RBK) and started there in August 2008 as a coach. Hamrén achieved immediate success with the ailing record champions and led the team to the UEFA Cup via the UI Cup. In the 2009 season he won the national championship with the team when runner-up Molde FK was distanced by 13 points.

On November 4, 2009, Svenska Fotbollförbundet presented Hamrén as the successor to Lars Lagerbäck , who had given up his post after missing the 2010 World Cup , as the new coach of the Swedish national team. Until August 31, 2010 he coached both the Swedish national team and the RBK. Under his leadership, the Swedish team finished second behind the Dutch national team in their qualifying group for the 2012 European Championship . With a 3-2 win in a direct duel on the last day of qualification, the Scandinavians topped the ranking of the best runners-up in the group and qualified directly for the finals in Poland and Ukraine. There the team met the Ukrainian , English and French national teams . After the Swedish national team had only been victorious in previous international matches in 2012, the European Championship kick-off was disappointing. After defeats against the Ukraine (1: 2) and England (2: 3) despite being in the lead in the meantime, the team was already bottom of the table before the last group game. Subsequently, Hamrén was criticized; Karl-Erik Nilsson , the president of Svenska Fotbollförbundet, however, immediately announced that he would hold on to Hamrén. With a 2-0 win against France through goals from team captain Zlatan Ibrahimović and Sebastian Larsson , the team won their final group game.

Hamrén led Sweden to qualify for the European Football Championship in 2016 after failing to qualify for the 2014 World Cup . After successfully qualifying, Hamrén announced on February 1, 2016 that he would resign from his position as the Swedish national coach after the 2016 European Championship.

He has been the coach of the Icelandic national team since August 2018 .