Mikael "Micke" Nilsson (; born 24 June 1978) is a Swedish 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 played as a midfielder and defender. He is best remembered for representing Halmstads BK,

Panathinaikos Panathinaikos Athlitikos Omilos ( el, Παναθηναϊκός Αθλητικός Όμιλος, literally in English: "Panathenaic Athletic Club" or Panathinaikos A.C.), also known simply as Panathinaikós , is a major Greek multi-sport club ba ...

, and Brøndby. A full international between 2002 and 2009, he played 64 matches for

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

and was a part of their UEFA Euro 2004,

2006 FIFA World Cup The 2006 FIFA World Cup, also branded as Germany 2006, was the 18th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football world championship tournament. It was held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 in Germany, which had won the right to host the ...

, and UEFA Euro 2008 squads.

Club career

Nilsson started his career with Ovesholms IF, where he stayed until 1998 when he moved to Åhus Horna BK. He played for the club for only one season before moving to Halmstads BK in 2000. His first season was mostly spent on the bench, but eventually he became one of the team's more important players until, during the 2004 season, he was sold to English club Southampton. At Southampton, he was not able to establish himself as a regular member of the first team and in 2005 he was sold to Greek club

. On 4 March 2008, he stated that when returning to Sweden he would play for Halmstads BK, but he would live in Malmö since he wanted to live in a larger city. On 8 April 2009, Nilsson announced a transfer to

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 signed a three-year contract and will move to the club on 1 July 2009. Nilsson's Brøndby contract expired on 30 June 2012 after which Nilsson left the club following three years playing as both a right back, midfielder and occasionally right midfielder. In his last six months at Brøndby, Nilsson did not play much as Brøndby did not see Nilsson as part of the club's future. In August 2012 he agreed to play for the Copenhagen-based club Fremad Amager due to the new assigned coach Per F. Hansen, as he was the former assistant coach of

. Although on 8 August 2012, Nilsson officially announced his retirement as a player.

International career

He has played in the Sweden national team since 20 November 2002, when he made his debut against the Czech Republic in which he scored two goals in a 3–3 draw. He has been a part of Sweden's squad to the UEFA Euro 2004,

and UEFA Euro 2008, mainly playing as a defender. He started out as a midfielder, but once when the national team lacked defenders, Nilsson was moved back, since then he generally played as a defender for the national team. During the

2010 FIFA World Cup qualification Qualifying for the 2010 FIFA World Cup was a series of tournaments organised by the six FIFA confederations. Each confederation — the AFC (Asia), CAF (Africa), CONCACAF (North, Central America and Caribbean), CONMEBOL (South America), OFC (O ...

Sweden changed to 3–5–2 formation, placing Nilsson again on the midfield. On 6 June 2009, Sweden played a 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifying match against Denmark at the

Råsunda Stadium Råsunda Stadium (; also known as Råsunda Fotbollsstadion, Råsundastadion, Råsunda Football Stadium or just Råsunda) was the Swedish national football stadium. It was located in Solna Municipality in Stockholm and named after the district i ...

in Solna. Nilsson made a terrible mistake that caused Sweden to lose 0–1 and eventually miss the World Cup. A cross came in from the right and Nilsson was going to clear it out of Swedish penalty area. He was not under pressure when the ball came. Somehow, he managed to get the ball on his left leg, causing it to roll across the goal-line and to the Danish midfielder Thomas Kahlenberg who scored easily. Following Sweden's failure to reach the

2010 FIFA World Cup , image = 2010 FIFA World Cup.svg , size = 200px , caption = ''Ke Nako. (Tswana and Sotho for "It's time") Celebrate Africa's Humanity'It's time. Celebrate Africa's Humanity'' (English)''Dis tyd. Vier Afrika se mensd ...

, Nilsson announced his retirement from international football, stating he would not be able to balance playing for both

and the Sweden national team.

Career statistics

International

Appearances and goals by national team and year International goals

Honours

;Halmstads BK *

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 ...

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Nilsson, Mikael 1978 births Living people UEFA Euro 2004 players 2006 FIFA World Cup players UEFA Euro 2008 players Allsvenskan players Expatriate footballers in England Expatriate footballers in Greece Expatriate men's footballers in Denmark Halmstads BK players Super League Greece players Panathinaikos F.C. players Premier League players Southampton F.C. players Danish Superliga players Brøndby IF players Swedish footballers Sweden men's international footballers Swedish expatriate footballers Fremad Amager players Men's association football midfielders Swedish expatriate sportspeople in England Swedish expatriate sportspeople in Greece Swedish expatriate sportspeople in Denmark People from Kristianstad Municipality Footballers from Skåne County