Anders Bleg Christiansen (born 8 June 1990) is a Danish professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who plays for

Allsvenskan Allsvenskan (; en, the All-Swedish, also known as Fotbollsallsvenskan, en, the Football All-Swedish) is a Swedish professional league for men's association football clubs. It was founded in 1924 and is the top tier of the Swedish football lea ...

club

Malmö FF Malmö Fotbollförening, commonly known as Malmö FF, Malmö, or MFF, is a professional football club and the most successful football club in Sweden in terms of trophies won. Formed in 1910 and affiliated with the Scania Football Association, ...

as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

. He also serves as

club captain The team captain of an association football team, sometimes known as the skipper, is a team member chosen to be the on-pitch leader of the team; they are often one of the older or more experienced members of the squad, or a player that can heavi ...

since 2020. He used to play with the nickname 'AC' on the back of his shirt.

Club career

Lyngby BK

Christiansen started his senior career at

Lyngby BK Lyngby Boldklub () is a Danish professional football club founded in 1921. It is based at Lyngby Stadion in Kongens Lyngby, Lyngby-Taarbæk Municipality, a northern suburb of Copenhagen. From 1994 to 2001 the club was known as Lyngby FC. The club ...

. He made his debut in the 2008–09 season, making three league appearances. The following season Christiansen earned more playing time and helped Lyngby achieve promotion to the top flight. He excelled as one of Lyngby's key players in the

Danish Superliga The Danish Superliga ( da, Superligaen, ) is the current Danish football championship tournament, and administered by the Danish Football Association. It is the highest football league in Denmark and is currently contested by 12 teams each yea ...

for the following two seasons, but could not save the team from relegation in their second season.

FC Nordsjælland

Christiansen's play in the Superliga earned him attention from the reigning champions

FC Nordsjælland Football Club Nordsjælland, commonly known as FC Nordsjælland, Nordsjælland () or FCN, is a professional Danish football team from the North Zealand town of Farum. Founded as ''Farum Boldklub'' from the merger of the town's two football club ...

. On 25 July 2012, Christiansen was presented as a Nordsjælland player after signing a four-year contract. He made 67 league appearances for the club during his two and a half year stint, and appeared in five games in the

2012–13 UEFA Champions League The 2012–13 UEFA Champions League was the 58th season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 21st season since it was renamed from the European Champion Clubs' Cup to the UEFA Champions League. The final was p ...

group stage.

Chievo Verona

On 15 January 2015, Christiansen secured a transfer to

Serie A The Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM for national sponsorship with TIM, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and the winner is awarded the Scudetto and the Coppa ...

club

Chievo Verona Associazione Calcio ChievoVerona, commonly referred to as ChievoVerona or simply Chievo , is a former professional Football in Italy, Italian football club named after and based in Chievo, a suburb of 4,500 inhabitants in Verona, Veneto, and o ...

. During his year in

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

he failed to earn much playing time, appearing in just five games.

Malmö FF

On 26 January 2016, Christiansen was presented as

Allan Kuhn Allan Hjortdal Kuhn (born 2 March 1968), known simply as Allan Kuhn, is a Danish association football coach and former player. He most recently was the manager of Danish Superliga club Hobro IK. Before that he was head coach of Swedish club Mal ...

's first signing as the newly appointed head coach at

. He made his

debut in the season opener against reigning champions

IFK Norrköping Idrottsföreningen Kamraterna Norrköping, more commonly known as IFK Norrköping or simply Norrköping, is a Swedish professional football club based in Norrköping. The club is affiliated to Östergötlands Fotbollförbund and play their ...

, where he scored his first goal for the club in a 3–1 win. Christiansen scored five more goals during the 2016 season and played a key role in Malmö's championship winning team until he suffered a season-ending injury with seven games to play. He recovered just in time for the start of the 2017 season, and soon picked up where he left off before the injury. On 7 September 2017, it was announced that Christiansen had extended his contract with Malmö FF over the 2022 season. On 16 October 2017, Christiansen scored a goal and added two assists in Malmö FF's 3–1 victory over

, which secured the league title with three games to play. After the season, Christiansen was voted

's midfielder of the year and the league's most valuable player. and also in 2020

Gent

On 4 January 2018, he joined Belgian side

Gent Gent is a shortened form of the word gentleman. It may also refer to: * Ghent (Dutch: Gent), a Belgian city ** K.A.A. Gent, a football club from Ghent ** K.R.C. Gent, a football club from Ghent ** Gent RFC, a rugby club in Ghent ** .gent, a ...

Return to Malmö FF

After a six-month spell at Gent he rejoined

in July 2018. Christiansen became club captain ahead of the 2020 season after predecessor

Markus Rosenberg Nils Markus Rosenberg (; born 27 September 1982) is a Swedish former professional footballer who played as a forward. He spent the majority of his career with his boyhood club Malmö FF, as well as a notable five-year stint with German Bundesli ...

retired. Under Christiansen's captaincy, Malmö won the 2020 championship and followed it up by qualifying for the

2021–22 UEFA Champions League group stage The 2021–22 UEFA Champions League group stage began on 14 September 2021 and ended on 9 December 2021. A total of 32 teams competed in the group stage to decide the 16 places in the knockout phase of the 2021–22 UEFA Champions League. Sherif ...

Personal life

Due to the moderate

mutual intelligibility In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...

between Danish and Swedish, Christiansen speaks a less dialectal version of his native language to the Swedish press as Malmö captain. He became fully comfortable with comprehending Swedish speech after several years in the country. This caused reactions when the Swedish broadcaster began an interview with him in English in 2020, only for Christiansen to respond that he preferred to do a cross-lingual interview instead. Christiansen grew up as a supporter of English club

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

. During his professional career he has admitted it became a 'bit more distant'.

International career

Christiansen has represented the Denmark national team in three friendlies. After a successful spring in

Malmö Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal populat ...

he got called up by former Malmö coach

Åge Hareide Åge Fridtjof Hareide (born 23 September 1953) is a Norwegian football manager and player, currently managing Malmö FF as the interim manager. In his playing career, he played for Hødd and Molde in Norway as well as Manchester City and Norwich ...

in May 2016, but had to decline after suffering a thigh injury. He was, surprisingly to most, included in the 26-man squad for the

UEFA Euro 2020 The 2020 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2020 (stylised as UEFA EURO 2020) or simply Euro 2020, was the 16th UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international men's football championship of Europe ...

tournament by Denmark coach

Kasper Hjulmand Kasper Hjulmand (born 9 April 1972) is a Danish football manager and a former player. He is the head coach for the Denmark national team. Playing career A defender, Hjulmand began his career with Randers Freja in 1987 where he played four ye ...

Career statistics

Honours

Malmö FF *

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...

2020 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, COVID- ...

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...

Svenska Cupen Svenska Cupen (, ''The Swedish Cup'') is a knockout cup competition in Swedish football and the main Swedish football cup. Svenska Cupen usually refers to the men's tournament, although a women's tournament is also held. Each year 96 teams compe ...

: 2021–22 Individual *

Midfielder of the year:

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

Most valuable player:

References

External links

Malmö FF profile
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Christiansen, Anders 1990 births Living people Footballers from Copenhagen Association football midfielders Danish footballers Denmark international footballers Denmark youth international footballers Denmark under-21 international footballers Danish Superliga players Danish 1st Division players Serie A players Allsvenskan players Belgian First Division A players Lyngby Boldklub players FC Nordsjælland players A.C. ChievoVerona players Malmö FF players K.A.A. Gent players UEFA Euro 2020 players Danish expatriate footballers Danish expatriate sportspeople in Italy Expatriate footballers in Italy Danish expatriate sportspeople in Sweden Expatriate footballers in Sweden Danish expatriate sportspeople in Belgium Expatriate footballers in Belgium