Karl-Gunnar Björklund

Karl-Gunnar Björklund (2015)

Karl-Gunnar Björklund (born December 2, 1953 in Växjö ) is a Swedish former football player who now works as a coach. The midfielder won the Swedish championship with Östers IF . Joachim Björklund's father played a total of 14 international matches for the Swedish national team in 1981 and 1982 .

Career

Björklund started his career at Östers IF. As a young player, he made his debut in the 1973 season for the club in the Allsvenskan . At the side of Göran Hagberg , Anders Linderoth , Inge Ejderstedt and Jan Mattsson , he was also a supplementary player in the following years, only in the 1976 season he celebrated his breakthrough: with five goals this season in 25 games, he contributed to reaching third place in the table. In the following season he was the club's best scorer with eight goals this season - which made him tenth in the league's top scorer list - ahead of Tommy Evesson and Mats Nordgren , but it was only ninth place in the table.

Björklund's most successful period began under coach Lars Arnesson . With the team around Peter Nilsson , Teitur Þórðarson , Björn Andersson and Per-Olof Bild , he dominated the championship in the 1978 season and won the championship title for the first time with six points ahead of Malmö FF . The following year, Bo Johansson took over as coach, and under his leadership he remained a regular on the offensive. In the 1980 season , the club won the championship again, just as in the following season. With good performances he had meanwhile played his way into the national team, which had been coached by Arnesson since 1980. In May 1981 he ran in the 1: 2 defeat against Denmark for the first time in the national jersey, especially in the subsequent games for qualifying for the 1982 World Cup finals , he ran regularly. Although the national team missed qualifying behind Scotland and Northern Ireland , he was still in the squad the following year.

In the 1983 season Björklund stood with Östers IF shortly before winning the championship again. However , the team coached by Leif Widén failed in the championship final at IFK Gothenburg . At the end of the season Björklund said goodbye to first division football and joined the third division IFK Värnamo , with whom he was relegated to fourth division a year later. At the end of 1987 he returned to Östers IF in the Allsvenskan to compete with the club in the championship finals - after two defeats against Malmö FF, however, he failed directly in the semi-finals.

After the end of his active career, Björklund moved to the coaching bench at Östers IF as Hans Backe's assistant , where he guided his son Joachim into the first team. In 1991, he succeeded Teitur Þórðarson as head coach in Norway at Brann Bergen , where his son moved with him. In 1993 they parted ways when the father took over the Swedish second division side Kalmar FF . In the following year he qualified with the team as runner-up in the southern season for the relegation games to Allsvenskan, the promotion to the elite series was missed after a 1: 4 defeat and a 2: 2 draw against Hammarby IF . Nevertheless, he returned to the first division, as the record champions Örgryte IS signed him as the new head coach. The first two years were characterized by defensive football with which relegation was accomplished. With the team around Marcus Allbäck , he finally surprised in the 1997 season with attacking football, which led the club to fifth place in the table. Nevertheless, he moved to the club after the end of the season and joined IF Elfsborg , where he inherited his former teammate Anders Linderoth, who had migrated to Norway. In the first year he finished the season in tenth place in the table before the relegation places. After the team was stuck in the relegation battle again the following year, the club dismissed him after a 5-1 loss to Örgryte IS in July 1999 and replaced him with his previous assistant Bengt-Arne Strömberg .

Björklund then worked in Norway at Molde FK and Larvik Fotball . After an interlude as Mats Jingblad's assistant coach at Landskrona BoIS , he returned to IFK Värnamo as head of sport. Later he worked full-time as a sports teacher. In the spring of 2008 he took over the coaching position at the third division club Östersunds FK . After a series of defeats at the beginning of the third division season in 2009 , he resigned from his position. For the 2010 season he was signed by local rivals IFK Östersund . In December 2010 he returned to Östers IF as Roar Hansen's assistant coach . He followed this to Helsingborgs IF in early 2013 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ zport.se: "Björklund lägger av som ÖFK-tränare" ( Memento of the original dated February 2, 2014 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 on July 26, 2011) 
2. ↑ zport.se: "" Kalle "och" Dala "på väg till IFK Östersund" ( Memento of the original from February 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on July 26, 2011) 
3. ↑ smp.se: "Kalle Björklund blir assisterande Östertränare" (accessed on July 26, 2011)