Matías Concha

Matías Concha
Concha 2006 in the Djurgårdens IF jersey
Personnel
birthday	March 31, 1980
place of birth	Malmo ,  Sweden
size	180 cm
position	Defense
Juniors
Years	station
	Kulladals FF
1997-2000	Malmö FF
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
2000-2003	Malmö FF	58 (0)
2004-2007	Djurgårdens IF	76 (2)
2007–2012	VfL Bochum	65 (0)
2012-2014	Malmö FF	17 (0)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
2006-2008	Sweden	8 (0)
1 Only league games are given.

Matías Concha [ maˈtias ˈkɔntɕa ] (born March 31, 1980 in Malmö ) is a former Swedish football player of Chilean descent. The defender , who made his debut for the Swedish national team in 2006 , played in Germany between 2007 and 2012.

Career

Career start and first title in Sweden

Concha first played for Kulladals FF in his youth , before the defender moved to Malmö FF's youth department in 1997 . With the youth team he was the following year on the side of Jimmy Tamandi , Zlatan Ibrahimović and Kristian Haynes Swedish youth champion. During the first division season 2001 he made his debut for the club in the Allsvenskan and played in the first division squad in the following seasons. Although the club had long-term plans with Concha, he decided to change clubs in February 2004.

After 39 first division games for MFF, Concha moved to league rivals and reigning champions Djurgårdens IF . At the Stockholm club, he ousted Niclas Rasck and thus won a regular place straight away. With his new club he finished fourth in the table in the 2004 season and reached the cup final against IFK Göteborg . With him in the starting line-up, goals from Daniel Sjölund , who scored twice, and Andreas Johansson , who conceded Niclas Alexandersson with a 3-1 win, won the Svenska Cup .

In the following season Concha was able to beat last year's success with Djurgårdens IF. With four points ahead of the table runners-up IFK Göteborg, the team, studded with players like Jones Kusi-Asare , Søren Larsen and Fredrik Stenman , won the Lennart Johansson Cup as the Swedish national champions. In addition, the cup final was reached again, in which the second division Åtvidabergs FF was defeated 2-0 by goals from Toni Kuivasto and Tobias Hysén .

With the double in his back, national coach Lars Lagerbäck Concha was nominated for an international series in January 2006. On January 23 of that year he made his debut in a 0-0 draw against the Jordanian national team in the jersey of the Swedish national team.

The following season was mixed for Concha. Although he was used in 20 of the 26 games of the season, he was sixth in the table but failed to qualify for the European Cup and he was also not considered in the national team over the course of the year. It was only in January 2007 that he returned to his second international match in the national jersey. But then he was able to stay in the squad and attracted international attention. After several months of unsuccessful negotiations, there were many indications in spring 2007 that Djurgårdens IF was saying goodbye, especially as his contract expired at the end of the year.

Experience abroad in Germany

In June 2007 VfL Bochum announced the commitment of Concha. The defender signed a four-year contract with the Revier Club. In the Bundesliga, however, he was unable to prevail over the long term. Slowed down by several injuries, he moved behind Marc Pfertzel into the second line and also lost his place on the right side of the defense of the Swedish national team. Therefore, in his debut season in German professional football, in which he finished twelfth with VfL, he only made 18 season appearances and was not included in the squad for the 2008 European Championship . After two games at the start of the 2008/09 Bundesliga season , he was injured again. After the winter break, he was largely able to establish himself in the regular formation and played eleven of his 13 back-round games from the start. At the beginning of the following season he was again only a substitute under coach Marcel Koller and was only used as a substitute. After Koller's dismissal, interim trainer Frank Heinemann relied more and more on him before he became a regular under Heiko Herrlich until the winter break. In the second division game against Union Berlin on December 6, 2010, he suffered a fractured tibia and fibula after a foul by Macchambes Younga-Mouhani and was out for the rest of the season.

Only on January 5, 2012, Concha was able to get back into the Bochum team training. On February 25, 2012, he came back to the regional league game of the Bochumer Reserve against SC Verl for the first time in a competitive game. On March 2, he made his comeback in the second Bundesliga in the home game of VfL against Dynamo Dresden . As a result, however, he continued to struggle with injury problems, this was his only season appearance.

Return to Malmö FF

On July 30th, Malmö FF announced the return of Conchas to Skåne. At his first professional station, he signed a contract that was valid until the end of 2014 and was given the shirt number 23, which symbolized his age when he said goodbye at the end of 2003. In the following years he was mainly a supplementary player, to the championships in 2013 and 2014 he made seven and eight appearances respectively. In summer 2014 he was used by coach Åge Hareide in three games in qualifying for the 2014/15 UEFA Champions League and was thus involved in reaching the group stage for the first time in the club's history for the European Cup finalists from 1979. Shortly before the end of the 2014 season , he announced his end of career at the end of the season.

titles and achievements

• Swedish champion: 2005
• Swedish Cup Winner: 2004, 2005
• Swedish Youth Championship: 1998

Web links

• Matías Concha in the database of svenskfotboll.se
• Matías Concha in the database of weltfussball.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ "Kristian Haynes" - profile at aik.se  ( 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 February 25, 2009)  
2. ↑ "Matias Concha lämnar Malmö FF" - article at newsdesk.se  ( 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 February 25, 2009)  
3. ↑ "Svenska Cupen h: Djurgården bäst i finalen" - match report at svenskfotboll.se (accessed on February 25, 2009)
4. ↑ "Sv Cupen herr: Djurgården vann dubbeln" - match report at svenskfotboll.se (accessed on February 25, 2009)
5. ↑ "Herr: Mållöst mot Jordan" - match report at svenskfotboll.se (accessed on February 25, 2009)
6. ↑ "Concha på väg att lämna Djurgården" - article at aftonbladet.se (accessed on February 25, 2009)
7. ↑ "Joris van Hout returns home" - Article at kicker.de (accessed on February 25, 2009)
8. ↑ "Concha in bad luck - Pfertzel on the rise" - Article at kicker.de (accessed on February 25, 2009)
9. ↑ Brutal foul in the second division: Bochum players kick . Spiegel online December 8, 2010. Retrieved May 5, 2016
10. ↑ mff.se: "Malmö FF håller just nu en presskonferens där Matias Concha presenteras" ( Memento of the original from September 5, 2012 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 August 18, 2012) 
11. ↑ mff.se: "Matias Concha slutar med fotboll" ( Memento of the original from November 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 December 4, 2014)