Anna Karin Severina Pohjanen (born 25 January 1974) is a

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

former

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

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 ...

who played in the

Damallsvenskan The Damallsvenskan, Swedish for ''ladies all-Swedish'' and also known as OBOS Damallsvenskan for sponsorship reasons, is the highest division of women's football in Sweden. It is also referred to as the women's Allsvenskan. The term Allsvenskan ...

for

Sunnanå SK Sunnanå SK is a football club from Skellefteå, Sweden who in 2019 plays in Swedish Women's Football Division 1, level 3 of women's soccer in Sweden. The club was established in 1939 and the women's division was added in 1974. Sunnanå has playe ...

and

Älvsjö AIK Älvsjö AIK FF is a Swedish football club located in Älvsjö within Stockholm Municipality. Background Älvsjö AIK was formed on 23 May 1915. The first and largest section of the newly formed club was football. Other sports played included b ...

. She won 51

caps Caps are flat headgear. Caps or CAPS may also refer to: Science and technology Computing * CESG Assisted Products Service, provided by the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters * Composite Application Platform Suite, by Java Caps, a Java ...

for the

Sweden women's national football team The Sweden women's national football team ( sv, Svenska damfotbollslandslaget) represents Sweden at international women's association football competitions and is controlled by the Swedish Football Association. History The Swedish team has be ...

, scoring eight goals, and appeared at the 1995 FIFA Women's World Cup and the

1996 Summer Olympics The 1996 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, also known as Atlanta 1996 and commonly referred to as the Centennial Olympic Games) were an international multi-sport event held from July 19 to August 4, 1996, in Atlanta, ...

. Pohjanen retired from football aged 27 to start a new career as a pop singer. She released her debut album "Better Things To Do" in December 2001, then went on tour in 2002. She then moved into television punditry and worked for

Sveriges Television Sveriges Television AB ("Sweden's Television Stock Company"), shortened to SVT (), is the Sweden, Swedish national public broadcasting, public television broadcaster, funded by a public service tax on personal income set by the Riksdag (national ...

on their football coverage. Pohjanen also founded a

sport management Sport management is the field of business dealing with sports and recreation. Sports management involves any combination of skills that correspond with planning, organizing, directing, controlling, budgeting, leading, or evaluating of any organiz ...

company and is an advisor to several leading women's footballers in Sweden. Sveriges Television removed her from her role as a pundit in 2007, amid concerns of a potential

conflict of interest A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates to situations i ...

Football career

Ahead of the 1998 season, Älvsjö AIK beat competition from other clubs to sign Pohjanen from Sunnanå SK, where she had spent her entire career to that point. In her first season Älvsjö secured their fourth successive

title, gaining Pohjanen her first winner's medal. She won her second in 1999, when Älvsjö retained their title again. After the 2000 season, Pohjanen considered retiring from football to concentrate on her music. But she accepted a new contract from Älvsjö which allowed her to miss training for her recording sessions. She stopped playing altogether after 2001. Pohjanen later worked as an advisor to women's football players and founded a sports management firm with lawyer and former Älvsjö teammate Lotta Fridh. She was careful not to have any involvement in transfers as she was not a

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

-registered

agent Agent may refer to: Espionage, investigation, and law *, spies or intelligence officers * Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another ** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuranc ...

Music career

Singer-songwriter Pohjanen released debut album "Better Things To Do" in December 2001 on Label This, a subsidiary of

Bonnier Amigo Music Group Cosmos Music, formerly Bonnier Amigo Music Group (BAMG), is an independent record company based in Stockholm, Sweden. Bonnier Amigo Music Group was formed in 2001 when the record company and distributor Amigo Musik merged with the record compa ...

(BAMG). It contained lyrics in English, underpinned by guitar-based

soft rock Soft rock is a form of rock music that originated in the late 1960s in Southern California and the United Kingdom which smoothed over the edges of singer-songwriter and pop rock, relying on simple, melodic songs with big, lush productions. S ...

. The album received a mixed critical reception; with ''

Norrköpings Tidningar ''Norrköpings Tidningar'' (English: ''Norrköping Times''), also known as ''NT'', is a Swedish language daily newspaper with its main distribution in northern and eastern Östergötland, Sweden. History and profile The newspaper was founded in ...

'' praising "competent", "worthy" pop in the

PJ Harvey Polly Jean Harvey (born 9 October 1969) is an English singer, songwriter, and musician. Primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, she is also proficient with a wide range of instruments. Harvey began her career in 1988 when she joined loca ...

mould. ''

Svenska Dagbladet ''Svenska Dagbladet'' (, "The Swedish Daily News"), abbreviated SvD, is a daily newspaper published in Stockholm, Sweden. History and profile The first issue of ''Svenska Dagbladet'' appeared on 18 December 1884. During the beginning of the ...

s review was less complementary, suggesting that none of the songs got off the ground. The album failed to

chart A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent tabu ...

Personal life

In 1999 Pohjanen was in a relationship with professional

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

(NHL) player

Mats Lindgren Mats Anders Lindgren (born 1 October 1974) is a Swedish former professional ice hockey forward. He was selected in the first round of the 1993 NHL Entry Draft, 15th overall, by the Winnipeg Jets, although he never had the opportunity to play for ...

References

External links

Profile
at

Swedish Olympic Committee The Swedish Olympic Committee (SOC) ( sv, Sveriges Olympiska Kommitté (SOK)) is the Swedish National Olympic Committee (NOC). The Swedish Olympic Committee organize the Swedish participation in the Olympics, choose the participants and run the " ...

"Best Beliefs" on YouTube
Living people 1974 births Swedish women's footballers Sweden women's international footballers Swedish pop singers Swedish songwriters English-language singers from Sweden Olympic footballers of Sweden Footballers at the 1996 Summer Olympics 1995 FIFA Women's World Cup players Sunnanå SK players Damallsvenskan players Suzuyo Shimizu FC Lovely Ladies players Nadeshiko League players Expatriate women's footballers in Japan Swedish expatriate sportspeople in Japan Swedish expatriate women's footballers Sportspeople from Umeå Women's association football midfielders 21st-century Swedish singers 21st-century Swedish women singers {{Sweden-singer-stub