Marcus Berg

Marcus Berg
Marcus Berg (2018)
Personnel
birthday	17th August 1986
place of birth	Torsby ,  Sweden
size	184 cm
position	Storm
Juniors
Years	station
	IFK Velen
	Torsby IF
	IFK Gothenburg
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
2005-2007	IFK Gothenburg	53 (21)
2007-2009	FC Groningen	56 (32)
2009-2013	Hamburger SV	54 0(5)
2010-2011	→  PSV Eindhoven  (loan)	25 0(8)
2013-2017	Panathinaikos Athens	112 (72)
2017-2019	al Ain Club	40 (35)
2019–	FK Krasnodar	20 0(7)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals) 2
2005-2006	Sweden U-19	4 0(2)
2006-2009	Sweden U-21	19 0(8)
2008–	Sweden	53 (18)
1 Only league games are given. Status: July 12, 2020 2 As of June 17, 2018

Marcus Berg (born August 17, 1986 in Torsby ) is a Swedish football player . The center forward has played his career so far in Sweden, the Netherlands , Germany , Greece and the United Arab Emirates and is currently under contract with FK Krasnodar .

In Sweden, Greece and the United Arab Emirates Berg won various national titles, including the championship title of the Allsvenskan and the UAE Arabian Gulf League . He was also the top scorer in three different leagues: in the 2007 season in the Swedish Allsvenskan , in the 2016/17 season in the Greek Super League and in the 2017/18 season in the UAE Arabian Gulf League.

Berg made his debut for the Swedish national team in 2008 , but for a long time he was overshadowed by the Swedish star striker Zlatan Ibrahimović . Previously, he had already played for Swedish youth national teams , including between 2006 and 2009 for the Swedish U-21 national team . In 2009 he was the top scorer in the U-21 European Championship finals held in his home country , where he set a record with seven tournament goals . With the senior national team he took part in the European Championship finals in 2016 and in the World Championship tournament in 2018 .

Career

Beginnings in Sweden and top scorer

Berg played for IFK Velen and Torsby IF in his youth . In 2003 he moved to IFK Göteborg in the youth department. In the 2005 season he made his debut for the IFK in the Allsvenskan. In his second season he earned a regular place and was appointed to the Swedish U-21 team: In the 0-1 defeat by the Irish U-21 team on February 28, 2006, he made his debut when he was in the Half-time break Henok Goitom replaced. In the following games he was able to establish himself in the national team and was used regularly.

In the 2007 season, Berg was a regular goalscorer in the Allsvenskan. In the summer of 2008, the Dutch club FC Groningen signed him for 38 million Swedish kronor (approx. 4.1 million euros). After 14 goals in 17 games of the season, he left Sweden and despite missing the rest of the season was tied with Razak Omotoyossi top scorer of the Allsvenskan.

Goalscorer in the first division and debut in the national team

On August 18, 2007, Berg made his debut in the 3-0 away win for FC Groningen at NAC Breda in the honor division. In his third appearance on September 2, 2007 in a 2-2 draw in the away game at Ajax Amsterdam , he scored his first two goals for his new employer. Subsequently, he was a regular goal scorer and played himself in the field of vision of Lars Lagerbäck , the coach of the Swedish national team . On February 6, he made his debut with the shirt number 10 in the 0-0 draw against the Turkish national team in the starting line-up of the national team. At the end of the season he was leading the club to seventh place in the table with 15 first division goals - placing him fifth in the top scorer list of the honorary division. In the subsequent playoffs for a place in the UEFA Cup, he helped with two goals in the 3-1 win over FC Utrecht to reach the semi-finals against NEC Nijmegen , in which the team failed despite another goal from Berg. Nevertheless, he was not appointed by Lagerbäck in the squad of the Swedish selection for the European Championship 2008 ; only after the tournament did he return to the national team and played his second international match on August 20 in a 3-2 defeat against France .

At the beginning of his second season in the Netherlands, Berg was one of the most dangerous strikers. In September 2008 he shot his club with a hat trick in the 3-2 victory in the cup match at HVV Hollandia after falling 2-0 into the next round. As a result, PSV Eindhoven and Ajax Amsterdam expressed interest in signing in the autumn . As in the previous year, he established himself in the top scorer list and took third place in the statistics behind the 23-time goal scorer Mounir El Hamdaoui and the 22-time goal scorer Luis Suárez with 17 goals ahead of Roy Makaay , Danijel Pranjić and Blaise Nkufo . Not least because of that, he established himself in the squad of the senior team, in which he was considered mainly as a substitute striker in view of the competition from Zlatan Ibrahimović , Henrik Larsson and Johan Elmander . Although he had not played a game for the U-21 selection in the calendar year, the coaches Tommy Söderberg and Jörgen Lennartsson nominated him at the end of May for the U-21 European Championship finals in his own country in which he was seven A International appearances was the most experienced player on the Swedish team. In the last international match before the tournament, a 4-0 win over Malta as part of qualifying for the 2010 World Cup , he scored his first international goal. He could preserve for the tournament with seven goals in four games, he won the marksmanship Golden Boot from adidas in recognition of the best scorers. UEFA also named him the best player of the tournament.

Mixed success in the Bundesliga with a temporary return to the Netherlands

Berg in the jersey of HSV (2012)

On July 18, 2009 Berg signed a contract with the German Bundesliga club Hamburger SV until June 30, 2014. Although he scored his first goal in the Bundesliga in his Bundesliga debut on August 15 in a 4-1 win over Borussia Dortmund , in the course of During the season, however, the attacker could not establish himself in the main lineup. At times in the starting line-up, benefiting from the unfortunate injuries of his colleagues Paolo Guerrero and Mladen Petrić , he was on the bench in half of his 30 games this season with Bruno Labbadia and his successor Ricardo Moniz, especially after Ruud van Nistelrooy signed on during the winter break.

On July 21, 2010 the Hamburger SV Berg loaned out to PSV Eindhoven until the end of the season . However, things did not go entirely to measure in the Netherlands either. At his new club he made 25 appearances in the honor division and was able to score eight goals, but he only played four times over the entire 90-minute game. With PSV he finished third in the Eredivisie 2010/11 . After the loan contract expired, Berg returned to Hamburger SV for the 2011/12 season. Due to various injuries, however, he did not gain a foothold in Hamburg again. It was not until the end of the Bundesliga 2011/12 that he was used more frequently under Thorsten Fink , and the club saved itself from relegation as fourth from bottom of the final table. In the following season he finally moved into the second rank, only in two of his eleven season appearances he was in the starting line-up, his only competitive goal in the course of the season he scored in the 2-4 first round defeat at the third division club Karlsruher SC in the DFB Cup 2012/13 .

Back on the road to success in Greece

In the summer of 2013, Berg moved to the Greek Super League at Panathinaikos Athens . Here he immediately showed his goal risk, with 15 goals this season he was behind Esteban Solari , who had scored one more goal, tied with Ben Nabouhane second on the goalscorer list. Although he placed with the club in the 2013/14 season with a clear gap to series champion Olympiacos Piraeus only in fourth place, in the cup competition , however, the team reached the final against PAOK Thessaloniki . There he became a match winner when he scored three goals in the 4-1 final win. As a result, he returned to the senior national team in the spring after almost one and a half years of abstinence, which, however , had missed the qualification for the 2014 World Cup .

Although in the two following seasons slowed down by minor injuries, he hit double digits throughout the season and thus led the club to the runner-up. These achievements were also honored by national coach Erik Hamrén , at the European Championship finals in France in 2016 he was included in Sweden's squad. He dueled with John Guidetti for second place in the storm next to Ibrahimović and was twice in the group stage in the starting XI, once he came into the game as a substitute. Ultimately, the Swedish national team only picked up one point in the 1-1 draw in the opening match against Ireland and ended the group stage after two 0-1 defeats in the following games, bottom of the table behind group winners Italy , Belgium and Ireland. Significantly, the only tournament goal in favor of the Scandinavians was an own goal by Irishman Ciaran Clark .

After Ibrahimović's national team career after the tournament, Berg established himself as a striker under the new national coach Janne Andersson and was Sweden's most dangerous attacker in qualifying for the 2018 World Cup . He also continued to show his goal danger at club level, so that Panathinaikos extended his contract to summer 2019 in autumn 2016. In the 2016/17 season he scored 22 goals by the end of the season. So he distanced the Tunisian Hamza Younés by three goals and crowned himself top scorer, but it was only enough in the championship to third place in the table.

Change to the United Arab Emirates and first participation in the World Cup

In June 2017, Berg moved to the al Ain Club in the United Arab Emirates. With 25 goals this season, he placed himself in front of Sebastián Tagliabué in the scorers list and led the club to a double from championship in the UAE Arabian Gulf League and victory in the UAE President's Cup . In the 2-1 final win against al-Wasl , he contributed the goal to the 2-0 intermediate result.

Berg also stayed on the road to success in the national team. As second in the group behind France , Sweden qualified for the play-off games in November 2017 before the three-time World Cup finalists Netherlands . After a 1-0 home win and a 0-0 draw in the second leg against Italy, Sweden qualified again for a World Cup finals after twelve years of abstinence, under Andersson he was part of the 23-player squad for the tournament in Russia in summer 2018.

Others

Berg received the nickname Svarte-Marcus because of his accuracy in his youth based on the nickname Filip "Svarte-Filip" Johanssons . His brother Jonatan is also a professional soccer player and plays for Varberg's BoIS .

Titles and awards

In the club

• Swedish Championship : 2007
• Greek Cup Winner : 2014

Personal awards

• Top scorer of the Swedish Allsvenskan 2007 (together with Razak Omotoyossi )
• Golden Shoe of the U-21 European Championship 2009
• Best player in the 2009 European Under-21 Championship
• Top scorer in the Greek Super League 2016/17

Web links

Commons : Marcus Berg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Marcus Berg in the database of weltfussball.de
• Marcus Berg in the database of fussballdaten.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ten stars of tomorrow. UEFA , July 1, 2009, accessed November 18, 2017 . 
2. ↑ U21: Irländsk 1-0-seger mot Sverige - svenskfotboll.se. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on June 27, 2009 ; Retrieved November 18, 2017 (Swedish). 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.  
3. ↑ “Marcus Berg klar för Groningen” - article at expressen.se ( memento of the original from June 20, 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 on November 11, 2008) 
4. ↑ Mr: Mållöst på Inönü - svenskfotboll.se. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on December 1, 2017 ; Retrieved November 18, 2017 (Swedish). 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.  
5. ↑ Lord Målfest när Frankrike vann på Ullevi - svenskfotboll.se. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on December 1, 2017 ; Retrieved November 18, 2017 (Swedish). 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.  
6. ↑ "Wedstirjd details - HVV Hollandia-FC Groningen 2: 3" - game on the club side FC Groningen (accessed on 11 November 2008)
7. ↑ "Berg kan lämna Groningen" - article at fotbollsverige.se (accessed on November 11, 2008)
8. ↑ svenskfotboll.se: "U21 gentleman: EM-troops uttagen" (accessed on June 8, 2009)
9. ↑ spox.com: "Schwede Berg best player of the tournament" (accessed on June 30, 2009)
10. ↑ hsv.de HSV obliges Marcus Berg ( Memento of the original from July 21, 2009 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. 
11. ^ PSV complete signing of Marcus Berg. PSV , July 21, 2010, accessed November 18, 2017 . 
12. ↑ HSV upheaval: Arslan, Berg and Hesl back ( Memento from May 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
13. ↑ skai.gr: "O Μάρκους Μπεργκ μιλάει για το νέο συμβόλαιό του στο PAO TV " (accessed on June 18, 2018)