Mathias Svensson

Mathias Svensson
Personnel
Surname	Mathias Svensson
birthday	September 24, 1974
place of birth	Borås ,  Sweden
position	striker
Juniors
Years	station
	Sexdrega / Aplareds IF
	IF Elfsborg
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1994-1996	IF Elfsborg	46 (22)
1996-1998	Portsmouth FC	45 (10)
1998	FC Tirol Innsbruck	6 0(1)
1998-2000	Crystal Palace	32 (10)
2000-2003	Charlton Athletic	70 0(8)
2003	→  Derby County  (loan)	10 0(3)
2003	Charlton Athletic	3 0(0)
2003-2005	Norwich City	42 (11)
2005-2007	IF Elfsborg	61 (13)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1997-2001	Sweden	3 0(0)
1 Only league games are given.

Mathias Svensson (born September 24, 1974 in Borås ) is a former Swedish football player . The striker , who played three times for the Swedish national team between 1997 and 2001 , played a large part of his career in England and became Swedish national champion with IF Elfsborg in 2006 .

Career

Career start in Sweden

Svensson started playing soccer at Sexdrega / Aplareds IF . From there he moved to the youth department of IF Elfsborg . For the club from his hometown Borås, he made his debut in the second-rate Division 1 . He soon became the club's top scorer and led him back to the Allsvenskan .

First and second division in England

In the summer of 1996 Svensson was poached by Portsmouth FC . Like other transfers from the club between 1996 and 1997, this move made headlines when irregularities were discovered in 1998. While the Swedish club was demanding £ 75,000 , the intermediary agent had given the English club a claim of £ 200,000 and kept the difference of £ 125,000 for himself. But Svensson also made headlines in terms of sport when he recommended himself as a regular in the second English division for the national selection and was appointed for the first time in 1997. In the 1-0 win over the Israeli national team through a goal by Andreas Andersson on March 12th, he made his international debut as a substitute for Kennet Andersson .

Svensson left England in the summer of 1998 and moved to FC Tirol Innsbruck . His stay in the Alpine republic at the side of players like Markus Anfang , Patrik Ježek , Aleksander Knavs or Stanislaw Salamowitsch Tschertschessow only lasted a few weeks. He returned to the island in late September and was signed by Crystal Palace along with Craig Moore , who came from the Glasgow Rangers . He signed a four-year contract for a transfer fee of £ 200,000 that earned him at least £ 3,500 a week at the club that was competing in the First Division and was supposed to help him get promoted back to the Premier League . In his first season for the club, however, he only made eight league appearances due to injury. In the following season he was one of the regulars and was used in 24 league games until January 2000.

Svensson moved to Charlton Athletic in January 2000 , with whom he rose to the Premier League. With seven goals in 22 games he reached ninth place with the club in the first division season 2000/01 . In the following two years he was prone to injury and was sidelined for a long time due to a knee injury. Therefore, the club loaned him to Derby County for three months in the summer of 2003 . In the First Division he scored three goals in ten games. He then returned to Charlton Athletic, where he played three times in the Premier League in addition to an appearance in the League Cup . In December, he signed a two-and-a-half-year contract with second division Norwich City . For the club, he scored seven goals in 16 games in the rest of the season and thus helped to promotion to the Premier League. The first division season was unhappy for him, in 22 missions he only scored four goals and he had to accept direct relegation with the club.

Return to Sweden

So Svensson returned to IF Elfsborg in the summer of 2005 for around £ 100,000. In his first game in the Allsvenskan he celebrated a good debut: He scored the 1-0 final against Kalmar FF . However, this remained his only goal of the season, so coach Kjell Jonevret put him on the bench and he played six of his 13 season appearances as a substitute.

After Magnus Haglund had taken over the coaching position, he established himself in his second season alongside Samuel Holmén , Stefan Ishizaki , Joakim Sjöhage and Anders Svensson as a regular player and started in all 26 games of the 2006 season . With six goals this season, he was one of the club's top three goalscorers behind Holmén and Anders Svensson and thus contributed to winning the Swedish championship.

After Svensson had problems with his knee again, he had to have an operation in January 2008. In March he decided to end his active career because of the knee damage.

Web links

• Mathias Svensson in the database of weltfussball.de
• Mathias Svensson in the soccerbase.com database (English)
• Mathias Svensson in the database of svenskfotboll.se

Individual evidence

1. ↑ independent.co.uk: "Club caught in football's murky world" (accessed April 22, 2009)
2. ↑ independent.co.uk: "Football: Forest seek Premier loan" (accessed April 22, 2009)
3. ↑ independent.co.uk: "Football: A club in turmoil: How Palace operated under Goldberg" (accessed April 22, 2009)
4. ↑ fotbolldirekt.com: "Mathias Svensson skadad igen"  ( 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 April 22, 2009)  
5. ↑ aftonbladet.se: "Mathias Svensson nyopererad" (accessed on April 22, 2009)
6. ↑ sportrykten.se: "Elfsborg - Mathias Svensson tvingas lägga av"  ( page can no longer be accessed , 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 April 22, 2009)