Jan Mikael Nilsson (; born 28 September 1968) is a Swedish former

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 ...

who played as a defender. He most notably played for

IFK Göteborg Idrottsföreningen Kamraterna Göteborg (officially IFK Göteborg Fotboll), commonly known as IFK Göteborg, IFK (especially locally) or simply Göteborg, is a Swedish professional football club based in Gothenburg. Founded in 1904, it is the ...

with which he won six Swedish Championships and played in the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competi ...

. A full international between 1991 and 1996, he won 22

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 Ja ...

for the Sweden national team and represented his country at

UEFA Euro 1992 The 1992 UEFA European Football Championship was hosted by Sweden between 10 and 26 June 1992. It was the ninth UEFA European Championship, which is held every four years and supported by UEFA. Denmark won the 1992 championship, having qualifi ...

and at the

1994 FIFA World Cup The 1994 FIFA World Cup was the 15th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national soccer teams. It was hosted by the United States and took place from June 17 to July 17, 1994, at nine venues across the country. The United States ...

where Sweden finished third.

Club career

Nilsson played for a local club called Tomtens IF and IFK Falköping until 1987 when he moved to

, where he stayed until he ended his active career in 2001 due to an eye injury. During these years, he played 609 first team matches, which is a club record. He also won six Swedish Championships with the club and played in several European competitions.

International career

Nilsson played 22 international matches for the Sweden national team, and was part of the

and

squads, he did however not play any matches in any of the tournaments. He also represented the Sweden U19 and U21 teams, and competed at the

1990 UEFA European Under-21 Championship Year 199 ( CXCIX) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was sometimes known as year 952 ''Ab urbe condita''. The denomination 199 for this year has been used since the ...

where Sweden reached the semi-finals before being eliminated by the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

Legacy

In ITV's Greatest Champions League Goals programme, Nilsson's two strikes against

PSV Eindhoven Philips Sport Vereniging (; en, Philips Sports Association ), abbreviated as PSV and internationally known as PSV Eindhoven (), is a Dutch sports club from Eindhoven, Netherlands. It is best known for its professional football department, w ...

were number twenty and nineteen on the list of the top 50 goals, including a magnificent free-kick with an insane amount of curve, which probably is what he is best known for. One of Clive Tyldesley's famous quotes- "Now they know he can shoot, oh they know he can shoot", referred to Nilsson's second strike against PSV.

Career statistics

International

Honours

IFK Göteborg * Swedish Champion:

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of humanity on Earth, astrophysicist ...

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phi ...

1993 File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peacefu ...

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson ...

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake str ...

, 1996 Sweden *

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament ha ...

third place:

Individual * Årets ärkeängel:

* Stor Grabb: 1995 Records * Most appearances for IFK Göteborg: 609

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Nilsson, Mikael 1968 births Living people Swedish men's footballers Sweden men's international footballers Sweden men's under-21 international footballers Sweden men's youth international footballers Allsvenskan players IFK Göteborg players UEFA Euro 1992 players 1994 FIFA World Cup players Men's association football defenders