Mikael Nilsson (soccer player, 1978)

Mikael Nilsson
Personnel
birthday	June 24, 1978
place of birth	Ovesholm ,  Sweden
size	185 cm
position	Right full-back Right midfield
Juniors
Years	station
	Ovesholms IF
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1995-1998	Ovesholms IF
1999	Åhus Horna BK	22 (11)
2000-2004	Halmstads BK	103 (17)
2004-2005	Southampton FC	16 0(0)
2005-2009	Panathinaikos Athens	72 0(0)
2009–2012	Brøndby IF	77 0(3)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
2002-2009	Sweden	64 0(3)
1 Only league games are given.

Mikael Nilsson (born June 24, 1978 in Ovesholm , Kristianstad municipality ) is a former Swedish football player .

The defender and midfielder , who made his debut in the Swedish national team in 2002 , won the Swedish championship title with Halmstads BK in 2000 .

Career

Breakthrough in Sweden

Nilsson began his football career at the seventh division Ovesholms IF before moving to Åhus Horna BK in the third division 2 Södra Götaland in 1999 . There he knew how to convince and after only one year the first division team Halmstads BK signed him. In his first year for the club, coach Tom Prahl used him in 13 games this season. At the side of players like Petter Hansson , Håkan Svensson , Henrik Bertilsson , Stefan Selakovic and Tommy Jönsson , he won the Von Rosens Cup for the Swedish championship when the team dominated the league by six points ahead of runners-up Helsingborgs IF .

After the team failed in qualifying for the 2001/02 Champions League at the Belgian representative RSC Anderlecht and then in the 2001/02 UEFA Cup in the second round at Sporting Lisbon , Prahl left the club at the end of 2001 and was replaced by Jonas Thern . Even under the new coach, Nilsson was one of the regular players and recommended himself for the national team. On November 20, 2002 he made his debut in the 3-3 draw against the Czech national team in the national jersey and crowned his debut with two goals. While he was still one of the regular players at his club and only missed one season game in the three seasons between 2001 and 2003, he was initially only irregularly in the national team. In the course of qualifying for the 2004 European Championship, however, he fought for a regular place and the national coaching duo Lars Lagerbäck and Tommy Söderberg considered him in the squad for the tournament. In the course of the tournament he was used in all four games of the national team until they were eliminated in the quarterfinals on penalties against the Dutch national team after misses by Zlatan Ibrahimović , Olof Mellberg and Phillip Cocu on the other side .

Change abroad

After the European Championship finals in 2004, Nilsson left Sweden for the Premier League for Southampton FC . There he signed a four-year contract. When the club is in the relegation battle, he could not prevail in the team around Kasey Keller , Peter Crouch , Graeme Le Saux and James Beattie and was only used irregularly. At the end of the season, the club was two points behind the last non-relegation place occupied by West Bromwich Albion at the end of the table and had to relegate from the Premier League.

After relegation Nilsson left England and moved to Greece to Panathinaikos Athens . In the 2005/06 season, however, he was only used irregularly in a total of 17 league games. He was featured five times in the UEFA Champions League and was included in the squad for the 2006 World Cup by national coach Lagerbäck, who is now solely responsible . However, he was not used in the course of the tournament. In the following years he could never prevail at Panathinaikos, even though he played more than half of the league games in the 2007/08 and 2008/09 seasons. Nevertheless, Lagerbäck continued to hold on to him and at the European Championships in 2008 he was again part of the national team. During the final tournament he played all three preliminary round matches before the team was eliminated after the group stage after only one win against Greece as third.

After his contract in Greece ended, Nilsson moved to Brøndby IF in the Danish Superliga on a free transfer . When by Kent Nielsen supervised club where he on his countrymen Max von Schlebrügge , Jon Jönsson , Samuel Holmén and Alexander Farnerud hits, he signed a three-year contract. At his new employer, he immediately established himself in the regular formation and reached the play-off games for the Europa League 2009/10 with the club , in which the team failed at the German representative Hertha BSC .

After Nilsson missed qualifying for the 2010 World Cup in October of that year with the Swedish national team in third place behind Denmark and Portugal , he announced the end of his national team career after 64 international appearances in order to be able to concentrate on the club.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ svenskfotboll.se: "Mr.: Målkalas i årets sista landskamp" ( Memento of the original from August 7, 2011 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 August 28, 2009) 
2. ↑ sr.se: "Mikael Nilsson till Southampton" ( Memento of the original from May 30th, 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 August 28, 2009) 
3. ↑ sr.se: "Mikael Nilsson klar för Panathinaikos"  ( 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 August 28, 2009)  
4. ↑ expressen.se: “Mikael Nilsson klar för Bröndby”  ( 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 August 28, 2009)  
5. ↑ svt.se: “Mikael Nilsson klar för Bröndby”  ( 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 August 28, 2009)  
6. ↑ svenskfotboll.se: "Även Mikael Nilsson lämnar blågult" (accessed on October 15, 2009)

Web links

• Mikael Nilsson in the weltfussball.de database