Leif Engqvist

Leif Engqvist
Personnel
birthday	July 30, 1962
place of birth	Dalby ,  Sweden
position	midfield player
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1982-1984	Lunds BK	26 (15)
1985-1991	Malmö FF	124 (25)
1992-1994	Trelleborgs FF	77 (11)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1986-1990	Sweden	18 (2)
Stations as a trainer
Years	station
2013–	Lunds BK
1 Only league games are given.

Leif Engqvist (born July 30, 1962 in Dalby ) is a former Swedish football player . The midfielder and striker , who competed with the Swedish national team in the 1990 World Cup, won the Swedish championship twice with Malmö FF .

Career

Career start at Malmö FF and title wins

Engqvist began his career at Lunds BK , where he went through the individual youth teams. At the side of the future national player Roger Ljung , the offensive player missed relegation with the club at the end of the second division season in 1984 when he was thirteenth in the table. The duo - Engqvist had excelled in particular with five goals in a game against IFK Malmö - had attracted higher class attention and after Engqvist had signed a contract with Malmö FF, the four-year-old club mate also moved to the club in the Allsvenskan .

Under coach Roy Hodgson , who had replaced Tord Grip as coach before the 1985 season , Engqvist initially fluctuated between starting line-up and substitutes' bench and thus only sporadically contributed to reaching the championship finals as leaders. In the semi-finals against IFK Göteborg he was a substitute, but could not prevent the elimination after two defeats. In the new season Hodgson assigned him a place in midfield of the team. As a regular at the side of Hans Borg , Lasse Larsson , Jonas Thern and Ingemar Erlandsson , he repeated the first place in the table with the club at the end of the season, with seven goals this season he was next to Björn Nilsson behind Larsson the club's second-best scorer. Although he was denied a goal in the final round, after successes over IFK Norrköping in the semi-finals, he played in both finals against AIK and won the Von Rosens Cup with the team as the Swedish national champion. In addition, with the success in the national cup, the win of the double succeeded . As a result of the successes, Engqvist played his way into national coach Olle Nordin 's notebook in the course of 1986 . In August 1986 he was in the 3-1 victory over the Finnish national team for the first time in Jersey in Sweden. As a result, he established himself in the squad, but mostly just sat on the bench and came on as a substitute.

The defending champion sat again in 1987 at the top of regular time, with four goals this season, Engqvist again had a decisive share. After winning the semi-finals against Östers IF , he moved into the final again with the team. Had the rival with a goal by Stefan Pettersson the first leg with a 1: 0 victory in his favor, to Malmo FF earned with goals from Hakan Lindman and Torbjörn Persson via penalty - Engqvist was fouled - a temporary two-goal lead in the Final second leg. In the 83rd minute of the game, however, Tord Holmgren buried his dream of defending his title, as after his goal to make it 2-1, IFK Göteborg won the title under the away goals rule .

Despite the missed championship title of the previous year, Engqvist showed with Malmö FF in the 1988 season again the outstanding position in Swedish league football, when the club finished regular time on the top position for the fourth time in a row. Although he remained without scoring in the course of the season, but was in all 22 games of regular time and by reaching the finals again, the four games of the finals on the field. After a 0-0 draw against Djurgårdens IF at the start, he was instrumental in winning the 15th league title in the club's history with two assists in the 7-3 return success.

Triumph in San Siro and participation in the World Championship

In the 1989 season , Engqvist returned to old goal danger. With eleven goals this season he placed in the top of the goalscorer list, only Jan Hellström from IFK Norrköping scored more goals during the season. He was also successful in the semi-finals of the championship finals. In both the 2-2 first leg and the 1-0 return win against the Gothenburg club GAIS , he signed the scorers list. In the final he met the team around Patrik Andersson , Niclas Larsson , Jonnie Fedel and Jean-Paul Vondenburg on IFK Norrköping. In addition to Martin Dahlin , he was also the goalscorer in the first first leg in the 2-0 away win. In the second leg, IFK Norrköping achieved a 1-0 win through Göran Holter , which - after abolishing the away goal rule due to the tight decision of the previous year - forced a playoff. After this ended goalless, the decision fell on the Swedish champions on penalties . While Engqvist converted his penalty, two of his club-mates were unlucky and again only the role of runner-up remained. The season was not without a title win, in the national cup he won the second title of his career.

In the summer of that year, Enqvist was involved in a highlight in the history of the club: in the first round of the 1989/90 European Cup , he met Italian champions Inter Milan with Malmö FF . In the first leg, the Swedish club prevailed with a 1-0 win thanks to a goal from Håkan Lindman. With a defensive tactic, the outsider held a goalless draw in the second leg at Milan's Giuseppe Meazza Stadium for a long time before Aldo Serena scored in the 70th minute for the Lombard club. When there was an indication of extra time, Engqvist scored the 1-1 equalizer shortly before the end with a header, which meant progress. However, they failed in the second round at KV Mechelen .

With his achievements, Engqvist had secured a regular place in the squad of the national team, so that he was appointed to the squad for the World Cup tournament in Italy in the summer of 1990. Although he had played most of the preparation games, he was only on the bench in the first two games of the World Cup. only in the final 2-1 defeat against Costa Rica , which meant leaving the group bottom, he came as a substitute for Glenn Strömberg from the 82nd minute on a short assignment.

Career end and time after active football

Under coach Bob Houghton the winning streak broke in the 1990 season , Engqvist missed the final round with the team as sixth in the table. He came to 19 season appearances, but he had lost his regular place and scored only one goal. With that he also lost his place in the national team, in autumn 1990 he played his 18th and last international match when he met Denmark . In the following season he reached the championship finals again with the team, but in the series, which has now been played in league format, it was only enough for a fourth place, which meant missing the European Cup .

After the 1991 season, Engqvist ended his engagement with Malmö FF and joined league rivals Trelleborgs FF . At the side of Mats Lilienberg and the former MFF players Anders Palmér and Jan Möller , he finished fourth with the club in the championship finals. In the 1993 season he distinguished himself within the club with six goals this season behind Lilienberg and Issa Manglind as the third-best club-internal goalscorer and was thus decisively involved in the entry into the European Cup. In the 1994/95 UEFA Cup , he and the team attracted international attention when English club Blackburn Rovers - champions in the Premier League at the end of the season - in the first round of the competition with a 1-0 away win and a 2-2 -Remis in Sweden was defeated. A sensation was also possible against Lazio in the subsequent round, after a 0-0 draw in the first leg, Alen Bokšić only decided the duel in favor of the Italians in stoppage time of the second leg with his goal to the 1-0 final. In autumn, Engqvist finally ended his active career at the end of the season.

In 1995, Enqgvist moved to the coaching bench and looked after various amateur clubs in the following years. In 2002 he returned to Malmö FF and worked temporarily in the coaching staff of Roland Nilsson . Mostly he worked in the youth department of MFF.

In November 2012, his first position, the third division club Lunds BK, which is in financial difficulties, announced that they had hired him as a part-time coach for two years from 2013.

successes

• Swedish champion: 1986, 1988
• Swedish Cup: 1986, 1989

Individual evidence

1. ↑ sydsvenskan.se: "Engqvist ny tränare i Lunds BK" (accessed on July 1, 2013)

Web links

• sydsvenskan.se: "Fem mål mot" di gule "gav contract"