Jonas Olsson (soccer player, 1970)

Jonas Olsson (2012)

Jonas Olsson (born January 14, 1970 ) is a former Swedish football player . The defender , who won the Swedish championship several times with IFK Göteborg , began a coaching career after his active career, which was hampered by injuries .

Career

Olsson started playing football at Tuve IF . From there he moved to IFK Göteborg , for which he first appeared in the Allsvenskan in 1989 alongside Thomas Ravelli , Roland Nilsson , Klas Ingesson and Kennet Andersson under coach Kjell Pettersson . After a disappointing seventh place in the table, the club changed coach and installed the former junior coach Roger Gustafsson . Under his leadership, the Gothenburg club developed a dominant position in Swedish football in the early 1990s. At the championship in the 1990 and 1991 seasons as a supplementary player hardly involved in winning the title, in the following years he developed into a regular and thus helped the club to four championship titles in a row. He subsequently played with the club in the UEFA Champions League . If he broke his leg in 1992 the day before a European Cup match with AC Milan , two years later he was part of the team that surprised as group winners in front of FC Barcelona , Manchester United and Galatasaray Istanbul in the 1994/95 competition before they reached the quarter-finals the away goals rule at Bayern Munich failed. However, he was only used in two group games and the quarter-final first leg. In 1996 again national champion, he injured himself the following year and fell out for a long time. In 1998, he ended his active career after an injury sustained in a game with the reserve team. He later developed cancer and had a tumor in his foot.

Olsson remained loyal to IFK Göteborg and was involved as a youth coach in the youth field. He later worked as assistant coach to Stefan Lundin and, after his dismissal in autumn 2002, from interim solution to Roger Gustafsson. Finally, from 2003, he also worked as an assistant under his successor Bo Johansson . On January 1, 2004, Olsson left the Gothenburg club and started his first coaching position with the third division club FC Trollhättan . With the club he survived a league reform in the league in 2005 and thus qualified for the newly created Division 1 .

At the end of 2006, Olsson returned to IFK Göteborg and formed a coaching duo with Stefan Rehn . Right off the bat, the two led the team around Ragnar Sigurðsson , Marcus Berg , Pontus Wernbloom , Bengt Andersson and Mattias Bjärsmyr to win the championship title in the 2007 season. In the following years the club was one of the top teams and won the national cup in 2008 . The club then extended the duo's contracts to 2011 in early 2009. In September 2011, sports director Håkan Mild announced the separation when the contract expired at the end of the season.

A few weeks after his departure from IFK Göteborg became known, the Norwegian club Sogndal Fotball signed Olsson at the beginning of October as a new coach from the Tippeligaen season 2012 .