Magnus Hedman

Magnus Hedman
Hedman (2012)
Personnel
Surname	Carl Magnus Hedman
birthday	March 19, 1973
place of birth	Botkyrka ,  Sweden
size	191 cm
position	goalkeeper
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1990-1997	AIK Solna	127 (0)
1997-2002	Coventry City	134 (0)
2002-2003	Celtic Glasgow	20 (0)
2004	→  Ancona Calcio  (loan)	3 (0)
2004-2005	Celtic Glasgow	6 (0)
2006-2007	Chelsea FC	0 (0)
2013	IK Frej
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1997-2004	Sweden	58 (0)
1 Only league games are given.

Carl Magnus Hedman (born March 19, 1973 in Botkyrka ) is a former Swedish football player . The goalkeeper , who took part in two world and two European championships with the Swedish national team , made 58 international matches and played in Sweden, England and Italy over the course of his career. In 2000 he was named Sweden's Footballer of the Year .

Career

Career start in Sweden and national team debut

Hedman grew up in Vårby Gård in southwest Stockholm . In 1978 he joined the local district association Vårby Gårds IF , which he represented in football and ice hockey . Soon, however, he decided to play football and stood in goal for the first time as a nine-year-old because the regular goalkeeper was absent due to illness. There he established himself as a regular player and switched to the youth team at IFK Stockholm in 1983 . From there he joined AIK's youth department in early 1987 . With the youth team he won the Swedish junior championship in 1989 and 1990 with final victories against the offspring from IFK Gothenburg . As a result, he came next to some of his young comrades at the end of the 1990 season to two games, when the club had already secured relegation. He had also established himself as a goalkeeper in the youth selections of Svenska Fotbollförbundet .

Behind Bernt Ljung , who was newly signed in early 1991, Hedman moved up as the club's second goalkeeper. After he had temporarily represented this in the course of the 1992 season and had contributed to winning the championship at the end of the year in seven regular-time games alongside players like Pascal Simpson , Kim Bergstrand , Wadym Jewtuschenko or Krister Nordin , he ousted at the beginning the following season the opponent between the posts. As a "long-runner" he played all 26 games of the season and was in the two European Cup duels with Sparta Prague in goal, in which AIK missed qualifying for the UEFA Champions League with a total score of 1: 2 . After the 1-0 home win at the beginning with a goal from Dick Lidman in the second leg, he did not make a good figure when he favored the decisive 2-0 winning goal by Horst Siegl with a failed defense .

Still, Hedman remained the club's first goalkeeper and played an outstanding first half of the season in 1994. Thereupon national coach Tommy Söderberg nominated the U-21 national goalkeeper, although still without an international match, as the third goalkeeper behind Thomas Ravelli and Lars Eriksson in the squad for the 1994 World Cup finals in the United States. Without playing, he pursued from the bench with the move into the semi-finals, the greatest success of the Swedish national team since the final participation in the 1958 World Cup . In the 1995 season he slipped into a form of depression. After coach Hans Backe had held onto him for a long time, he finally replaced him in August with the previous substitute goalkeeper Matts Andersson . He then fought his way back as a regular player and won the national cup with the team in the summer of 1996 .

In the 1996/97 European Cup Winners' Cup , Hedman drew attention to himself with good performances and reached the quarter-finals of the competition with the team. He then returned to the national team. On February 8, 1997, he made his debut in the national jersey when the Romanian national team was defeated by a 2-0 victory in the King's Cup . During the invitation tournament, he took turns with Thomas Ravelli and thus contributed to the tournament win in two games. He received international attention a short time later after the quarter-final match in the European Cup, when he won several bailouts, particularly against Ronaldo, in the 3-1 defeat and the 1-1 draw against FC Barcelona , which meant leaving the competition showed his talent. In the Swedish press he was awarded the title world class for his achievements.

In the first half of the 1997 season , too, he was an excellent source of support at AIK. This was particularly evident in the cup, where he again reached the final with the team around Nebojša Novaković , Michael Brundin , Thomas Lagerlöf , Gary Sundgren and Patrik Fredholm . In addition to his goalkeeping work as a goal scorer on penalties , he contributed to this when he converted his penalty in the semifinals against the Gothenburg club Örgryte IS . In the final he defended the national cup with a 2-1 win over IF Elfsborg . At the end of June he announced his departure from AIK and left the club after his 125th Allsvenskan game, a 2-0 win over Örebro SK towards England.

Years abroad

In July 1997, Hedman began his service at his first post abroad. At the English club Coventry City , last year only narrowly escaped relegation, he ousted Steve Ogrizovic as regular goalkeeper during his first season in the Premier League and occupied a midfield position with the team under the direction of coach Gordon Strachan . As a regular in a big league, he inherited Ravelli in the spring of 1998, who had resigned from the national team after failing to qualify for the 1998 World Cup . On the one hand, he slipped increasingly into the relegation battle with the club team, in which he stood alongside players like Richard Shaw , Darren Huckerby , Noel Whelan or Gary McAllister, on the other hand, he returned with the national team to the international higher-class teams and qualified as a regular between the posts for the European Championship 2000 in Belgium and the Netherlands. Despite good performances, he and the team took the last place in the group there, but he was still worthy of an award and at the end of the year received the Guldbollen as best Swedish football player of the year.

The 2000/01 season was sobering for Hedman and his club. While he lost his regular place to the young goalkeeper Chris Kirkland over the course of the season , the club only managed eight wins this season. The team was already relegated three game days before the end of the season, together with Manchester City and Bradford City the club moved into the second division after 34 years of excellence. Those responsible initially stuck to Strachan in order to achieve direct resurgence with him and especially the new signing Lee Hughes . Hedman also remained loyal to the club and soon received support from a compatriot when a new coach was hired in Roland Nilsson after a poor start to the season . After Kirkland's departure, he was the first goalkeeper to go to the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan. As group winners before England , Argentina and Nigeria , the Swedish selection reached the round of 16, with Hedman conceding one goal in each group game. There the national team failed against Senegal when Henri Camara decided the game with his second goal in the game in the 104th minute with a golden goal .

Hedman moved to the Scottish club Celtic Glasgow after missing promotion with Coventry City within Great Britain . He signed a four-year contract with the traditional club. Due to injury, however, he remained behind Robert Douglas the role of substitute, he was only used occasionally. In the meantime, Andreas Isaksson has benefited from Hedman's bad luck with injuries in the national team and established himself as the goalkeeper of the national team. To him stakes and the participation in the European Championship tournament in 2004 to enable the club gave him the end of January 2004 at his own request to the Italian club AC Ancona in Serie A . Here he came only sporadically during the season, so that he was in the EM squad, but had to be content with the reserve role. After the tournament he returned to Celtic, in the three-way battle with Robert Douglas and David Marshall he could not prevail and remained a reservist for long periods of the season. In the summer of 2005 he therefore dissolved his contract with the Scottish club by mutual agreement.

After Hedman had initially announced his retirement, he returned to the football business in autumn 2006. In November of that year regular goalkeeper Petr Čech had his head injured when he collided with opponent Stephen Hunt in a league match against Reading for England club Chelsea and had to take a long break. Since Carlo Cudicini was injured in the same game - albeit with a shorter downtime - Henrique Hilário was the only goalkeeper available with professional experience, so that coach José Mourinho saw the need for a second commitment. Since the transfer period was already closed, Hedman was invited, who convinced in the trial training and signed a contract valid until the end of the season. With the shirt number "22" he was regularly on the bench, but was not used for the London club. He then ended his career again, but was often associated with English clubs.

At times after retiring, Hedman worked as an expert at the Swedish television station TV4 , but he also made headlines outside of football. He began using amphetamines and cocaine , and became addicted to sleeping pills and antidepressants after his discharge from TV4 . With his relationship with Magdalena Graaf , with whom he has three sons and who has since separated from him, Hedman filled the gossip columns of the press, but his social commitment was also in the coverage. He was involved in the Swedish Ren Idrott Foundation ( German : "Reiner Sport"), but in the summer of 2009, after a vehicle inspection , a blood and urine sample revealed that he was taking steroids . The organization ended their collaboration and Hedman was fined in September 2009 for possessing stanozolol tablets . His financial situation also became public when his company MHM had to file for bankruptcy in March 2010 . In June 2010, Hedman was arrested again and fined for violating the Swedish prohibition on prostitution . In 2012 he published his autobiography “När ljuset släcks” in collaboration with the journalist Gunnar von Sydow . In 2013 Hedman made a brief comeback when he played a game for IK Frej .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ aik.se: “AIK Ungdomsfotbolls SM-guld”  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on July 13, 2010)  
2. ↑ UEFA .com: Celtic tempt Hedman north . Retrieved July 13, 2010.
3. ↑ UEFA .com: Hedman heads to Serie A . Retrieved July 13, 2010.
4. ↑ rte.eu: “Hedman parts company with Celtic”  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on July 13, 2010)  
5. ↑ UEFA .com: Hedman earns Chelsea chance . Retrieved July 13, 2010.
6. ↑ aftonbladet.se: "Åtalas för dopning - kan bli kvar i Ren Idrott" (accessed on July 13, 2010)
7. ↑ expressen.se: "Magnus Hedmans företag i bankruptcy - förbjuds resa utomlands" ( Memento of the original from July 1, 2010 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 13, 2010) 
8. ↑ Daily Record of May 11, 2012 , accessed on May 13, 2012
9. ^ Norstedts, accessed on May 13, 2012 (Swedish)

Web links

Commons : Magnus Hedman  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• aik.se: "MAGNUS HEDMAN - MEST MERITERADE MÅLVAKTEN"
• Magnus Hedman in the soccerway.com database