Brian Chrøis (born 12 November 1959) is a Danish former 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 scored 68 goals in 239 games as a

defensive 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 ...

for Danish club

Brøndby IF Brøndbyernes Idrætsforening (, usually abbreviated to Brøndby IF (), is a professional association football club based in Brøndbyvester, Capital Region of Denmark. The club was founded in 1964 as a merger between two local clubs and was p ...

. He scored a single goal in seven games for the

Denmark national football team The Denmark men's national football team ( da, Danmarks herre-fodboldlandshold or ''herrelandsholdet'') represents Denmark in men's international football competitions. It is controlled by the Danish Football Association (DBU), the governing bo ...

. Besides Denmark, Chrois has played in Switzerland and Spain.

Biography

Born in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

, Chrøis started playing football with local team

Boldklubben Avarta Boldklubben Avarta is a Danish football club currently playing in the Danish 2nd Division Group 1, which ranks as the third highest league in Denmark. Avarta's home ground is Espelundens Idrætsanlæg in Rødovre, Copenhagen, which has a capaci ...

. He made his senior debut at Avarta, and established himself as a

with fine finishing. He was part of a team reaching consecutive promotions to the

Copenhagen Series Copenhagen Series for men ( da, Københavnsserien for Herrer; Herre Københavnsserien), unofficially also known as Københavnerserien and often shortened to KS serien and KS Herre, is the highest division for men organised by the regional football ...

to the

Denmark Series The Denmark Series ( da, Danmarksserien) is the fifth tier in the Danish football league system. Teams are divided into four groups of ten. The top team in each group is promoted to the Danish 3rd Division. The bottom three teams in each group are ...

before reaching the then third-tier 3rd Division. He moved to

before the 1980 season, and was named 1980 "Brøndby Player of the Year". He helped the club win the 1981 2nd Division, and secure

promotion Promotion may refer to: Marketing * Promotion (marketing), one of the four marketing mix elements, comprising any type of marketing communication used to inform or persuade target audiences of the relative merits of a product, service, brand or i ...

to the top-flight

Danish 1st Division The 1st Division (''1. Division'') is the second-highest football league in Denmark, also known as NordicBet Liga for sponsorship reasons. From 1945 to 1991 the 1. Division was the name of the highest level of football in Denmark. With the forma ...

. In 1981, before the 1982 season, he became the first fully professional player in

Danish football Association football is the most popular sport in Denmark, with 331,693 players and 1,647 clubs registered () under the Danish FA. The game was introduced into Denmark by British sailors. Kjøbenhavns Boldklub is the oldest club outside of the U ...

, when Brøndby chairman

Per Bjerregaard Per Anders Bjerregaard (; born 23 January 1946) is a Danish educated physician (cand.med.) and former footballer, executive director and chairman of Danish football club Brøndby IF. Career Born in Randers, Bjerregaard moved to Copenhagen where ...

offered him a full-time contract. He was Brøndby's topscorer with 13 league goals in the 1983 season, and was called up for the Danish national team in May 1983, by national manager

Sepp Piontek Josef Emanuel Hubertus "Sepp" Piontek (born 5 March 1940) is a German former footballer and manager. Playing career Born in Breslau, now Wrocław. Piontek started his playing career with VfL Germania Leer. Between 1963 and 1972, the full-back ...

. He played seven games in Denmark's unsuccessful qualification campaign for the

1984 Summer Olympics The 1984 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXIII Olympiad and also known as Los Angeles 1984) were an international multi-sport event held from July 28 to August 12, 1984, in Los Angeles, California, United States. It marked the secon ...

, scoring a goal against

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. In 1984, he was offered an economically improved full-time contract by Brøndby's rival team

Hvidovre IF Hvidovre Idrætsforening, more commonly known as Hvidovre IF () is a Denmark, Danish professional association football, football club based in Hvidovre. The club competes in the Danish 1st Division, the second tier of Danish football league syste ...

, which he accepted. As Bjerregaard did not want his young midfielder moving to a rival club, he used a clause in Chrøis' contract, to sell him to a foreign club. Chrøis moved to Spanish club

Granada CF Granada Club de Fútbol, S.A.D. (), known simply as Granada, is a Spanish football club based in the city of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, that plays in the Segunda División, after being relegated from La Liga in the 2021� ...

in the secondary

Segunda División The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Segunda División, commercially known as LaLiga SmartBank for sponsorship reasons, is the men's second professional association football division of the Spanish football league system. Administrated by the Lig ...

league. He enjoyed life in Spain, but he was soon far from the Danish national team, and decided to move on after a year. This caused problems getting his wage from Granada, but with the intervention of Per Bjerregaard,

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 ...

got involved, and Chrøis received the approximately £25.000 the club had withheld. He moved to

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, to play for

AC Bellinzona AC Bellinzona is a Swiss football club based in Bellinzona. It was founded in 1904, and won the Swiss Super League in 1948. After being folded in 2013 declaring bankruptcy, the team played the Ticino Group of 2.Liga, the sixth tier of the Swi ...

in the secondary Challenge League division. He helped the club win promotion for the top-flight

Swiss Super League The Swiss Super League (known as the Credit Suisse Super League for sponsorship reasons) is a Swiss professional league in the top tier of the Swiss football league system and has been played in its current format since the 2003–04 season ...

in 1986, before he decided to move back to Denmark in 1987. He rejoined Brøndby under manager

Ebbe Skovdahl Ebbe Skovdahl Hansen (5 July 1945 – 23 October 2020) was a Danish football manager. He most prominently was a successful manager at Brøndby IF, for whom he had also played in his active years. He helped turn the side into the most dominant D ...

, and helped the club win the 1987 and 1988 Danish championships, as well as the 1989

Danish Cup The Danish Cup ( da, Landspokalturneringen; often referred to as Pokalen) is the official "knockout" cup competition in Danish football, run by the Danish Football Association. The cup has been contested annually since 1955. The winner will quali ...

. Brøndby hired new manager

Morten Olsen Morten Per Olsen (born 14 August 1949) is a Danish football manager and former player. He was the head coach of the Denmark national team for 15 years from 2000 until 2015, guiding Denmark to the 2002 FIFA World Cup, 2004 European Championshi ...

in January 1990, and Chrøis was one of several older players who did not feature in Olsen's plans for the future. Chrøis moved to lower league club Helsingør IF, alongside Brøndby players Erik Rasmussen and Ole Østergaard. He played one and a half year at the club, before an

achilles tendon The Achilles tendon or heel cord, also known as the calcaneal tendon, is a tendon at the back of the lower leg, and is the thickest in the human body. It serves to attach the plantaris, gastrocnemius (calf) and soleus muscles to the calcaneus (h ...

injury forced him to retire in 1992. He went on to coach Helsingør alongside

Birger Peitersen Birger Bloch Peitersen (; born 7 March 1945) is a Danish former football manager and player. After his career in football, he featured as a sports pundit. He is currently employed at the Department of Sports at the University of Copenhagen. Ca ...

, and coached a number of smaller Danish teams before leaving football in 1998. He later returned to football and coached Humlebæk BK and Allerød FK.

Honours

* Brøndby Player of the Year: 1980 * Danish Championships: 1987 and 1988 *

: 1989

References

Sources

*Mads Rømert, "Fuldtidsproffen: Chrøis var første prof i Brøndby", ''

Jyllands-Posten ''Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten'' (; English: ''The Morning Newspaper "The Jutland Post"''), commonly shortened to ''Jyllands-Posten'' or ''JP'', is a Danish daily broadsheet newspaper. It is based in Aarhus C, Jutland, and with a weekday circulat ...

'', September 4, 2000 * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Chrois, Brian 1959 births Living people Danish men's footballers Danish expatriate men's footballers Danish Superliga players La Liga players Boldklubben Avarta players Brøndby IF players Granada CF footballers AC Bellinzona players FC Helsingør players Denmark men's international footballers Denmark men's under-21 international footballers Danish expatriate sportspeople in Spain Danish expatriate sportspeople in Switzerland Expatriate men's footballers in Spain Expatriate men's footballers in Switzerland Men's association football midfielders Footballers from Copenhagen Danish football managers Danish 1st Division players Danish 2nd Division players Denmark Series players