Gustav Svensson (soccer player)

Gustav Svensson
Gustav Svensson (2018)
Personnel
Surname	Karl Gustav Johan Svensson
birthday	February 7, 1987
place of birth	Gothenburg ,  Sweden
size	183 cm
position	Defender midfielder
Juniors
Years	station
0000-2001	Azalea BK
2001-2006	IFK Gothenburg
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
2006-2010	IFK Gothenburg	101 (8)
2010–2012	Bursaspor	28 (0)
2012-2014	Tavriya Simferopol	21 (0)
2014-2016	IFK Gothenburg	47 (0)
2016	Guangzhou R&F	28 (0)
2017–	Seattle Sounders FC	46 (3)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals) 2
2007-2009	Sweden U-21	24 (0)
2009–	Sweden	12 (0)
1 Only league games are given. As of June 5, 2018 2 As of June 5, 2018

Karl Gustav Johan Svensson (born February 7, 1987 in Gothenburg ) is a Swedish football player who is under contract with Seattle Sounders FC in the US Major League Soccer . The defensive player, who made his debut for the Swedish national team in 2009 , won the Swedish championship and the national cup with IFK Göteborg . In the course of his career he was also under contract in Turkey , Ukraine and China . He mainly plays in central defensive midfield , but can also be used in defense .

Career

Career start in Sweden

Svensson played for Azalea BK in his youth . In 2001 he moved to IFK Göteborg in the youth department. During the 2006 season he moved up to the professional squad and came to five appearances during the season . In the following season he was able to establish himself in the squad and contributed in 22 games to winning the Lennart Johansson Cup as the Swedish national champion. At the same time he played his way into the Swedish U-21 team , in which he played in March 2007 in the 1: 2 defeat against the Maltese U-21 national team alongside Tom Siwe , Marcus Falk-Olander and Jesper Westerberg in the Defense chain debuted.

In the following seasons Svensson established himself on the defensive with both his club and the junior national team, where he gradually moved into the defensive midfield. In autumn 2008 he moved into the cup final against champions Kalmar FF with the club team . There he was initially only on the bench, the coaching duo Stefan Rehn and Jonas Olsson changed him in the 62nd minute for Thomas Olsson . He did not have to compete in the decisive penalty shoot - out after goalkeeper Kim Christensen parried Marcus Lindberg's penalty and thus made IFK Göteborg the cup winner.

At the beginning of 2009 Svensson received his first nomination for the Swedish national team. On the occasion of a North American tour of the national team, national coach Lars Lagerbäck put the defensive specialist in midfield in the 3-2 defeat against the US national team with goals from Daniel Nannskog and Mikael Dahlberg in three goals conceded by Sacha Klještan on January 24th of that year, four days later he was able to celebrate his first victory in the national jersey after a goal by Alexander Farnerud in a short game in the last minutes of the game in a 1-0 win over Mexico . In the following first division season in Sweden he was able to confirm his form and contributed as a regular player in all twelve games until the summer break to reaching the top of the table. At the end of May, the supervisors of the Swedish U-21 team, Tommy Söderberg and Jörgen Lennartsson , joined his club mates Mattias Bjärsmyr , Robin Söder and Pontus Wernbloom in the squad for the U-21 European Championship finals in their own country in the summer. In the course of the tournament he played all four games alongside Ola Toivonen , Mikael Lustig and Rasmus Elm until the team failed in the semifinals on the English U-21 selection on penalties.

As a regular player, Svensson ran for the club in both games in qualifying for the 2009/10 Europa League , but the team failed at the Israeli representative Hapoel Tel Aviv . By the end of the season he contributed to the runner-up behind AIK in 29 games and reached the cup final with the team. Set up alongside Jakob Johansson in defensive midfield, he missed defending his title after goals from Mauro Iván Óbolo and Antônio Flávio with a 2-0 defeat by AIK. Also at the beginning of the following series he held the club as a regular in the front division of Allsvenskan.

Change abroad

Shortly before the end of the transfer window , Svensson left Sweden on August 31, 2010 and joined the reigning Turkish champions and Champions League participants Bursaspor . It was not until autumn that he established himself in the squad and was a regular member of the squad in both the Süper Lig and the UEFA Champions League . Nevertheless, he was rarely used - within two years he played only 28 league games, most of them as a substitute. In the 2011/12 season , when the club ended the regular season as eighth in the table and qualified for the European Cup via the play-off Avrupa ligi Grubu , he was temporarily no longer in the squad on individual game days.

In early July 2012, Svensson then left Turkey and moved to Tawrija Simferopol in the Ukrainian Premjer-Liha . On August 31, he played his first league game for Tawrija. From then on, he was part of the permanent staff until the winter break, but was not used again until the following season because of a torn cruciate ligament .

Return to Sweden

In March 2014 it came to the annexation of the Crimea by Russia . When he learned of the imminent invasion of Russian troops, he fled with his family and other foreign players and returned to Sweden - initially with the plan to be able to return to Simferopol. Instead, he finally moved back to IFK Göteborg , where he was also a regular. He also played his way back to the national team and played four international matches between October 2015 and January 2016. After moving to China, however, he was initially no longer nominated.

Stations in China and the USA

In 2016, Svensson received an offer from the Chinese club Guangzhou R&F . He then sought advice from the Swedish trainer Sven-Göran Eriksson , who had been a trainer in Guangzhou from 2013 to 2014, and then accepted the offer. Svensson was also a regular in China. However, he had to leave China again after just one season. This was due to a rule change by the Chinese association, according to which a club was only allowed to use three foreigners per game.

Erik Friberg then convinced Svensson to move to Major League Soccer for Seattle Sounders FC . Originally intended as a substitute, he came partly as indoor or right -back is used, however, stood in 30 of 34 games in his first season in the starting XI. Also because of his versatility, he played an important role in the Sounders, with whom he reached the final of the MLS playoffs in 2017. In the summer of 2017, he also returned to the national team. Coach Janne Andersson also appointed him to the squad for the 2018 World Cup .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ svenskfotboll.se: "IFK Göteborg cupmästare 2008" ( memento of the original from August 30, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed June 10, 2009) 
2. ↑ svenskfotboll.se: "U21 gentleman: EM-troops uttagen" (accessed on June 8, 2009)
3. ↑ aftonbladet.se: "Gustav Svensson klar för turkiska mästarna" (accessed on September 1, 2010)
4. ↑ fotbolltransfers.com: "Officiellt: Gustav Svensson klar för Tavriya Simferopol" (accessed on July 27, 2012)
5. ^ ^{A b} Geoff Baker: What a road for Sounders' Gustav Svensson: From gun-toting militia in his face to soccer in China and Seattle . Seattle Times, April 8, 2017
6. ^ ^{A b} Robert Casner: A Year in Guangzhou with Gustav Svensson . soundersfc.com, June 7, 2017
7. ^ Matt Pentz: Svensson's arrival helped fill leadership vacuum in Seattle's march to MLS Cup . ESPN, November 30, 2017

Web links

• Gustav Svensson in the database of weltfussball.de
• Profile at IFK Göteborg ( Memento from October 24, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
• Statistics of professional games in Sweden at svenskfotboll.se