Ville Viljanen (born 2 February 1971) is a Finnish former international

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 ...

. A

striker Striker or The Strikers may refer to: People *A participant in a strike action *A participant in a hunger strike *Blacksmith's striker, a type of blacksmith's assistant *Striker's Independent Society, the oldest mystic krewe in America People wi ...

, he scored 47 goals in 200 league games in a nine-year career, and won one cap for

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

in 1999. He played in

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 ...

with

Sandarna BK Sandarna BK is a Swedish football club located in Göteborg. Background Sandarna BK currently plays in Division 4 Göteborg B which is the sixth tier of Swedish football. They play their home matches at the Gröna vallen in Göteborg. The club ...

, BK Häcken, and Västra Frölunda IF between 1994 and 1999, helping Häcken to promotion out of Division 1 as play-off winners in 1997. He joined the English club

Port Vale Port Vale Football Club are a professional football club based in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, England, which compete in . Vale are the only English Football League club not to be named after a place; their name being a reference to the valley o ...

in February 2000 and was an unused substitute in the 2001 Football League Trophy final. He then returned to Sweden with

GAIS , neighboring_municipalities= Altstätten (SG), Appenzell (AI), Bühler (AR), Eichberg (SG), Rüte (AI), Schlatt-Haslen (AI), Trogen (AR) , twintowns= } Gais () is a village and a municipality in the canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden i ...

, helping the club to two promotions from Division 2 to

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 ...

before he retired in 2005.

Career

Viljanen began his career in

with

, before he moved to Division 1 side BK Häcken in

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...

. They finished fourth in

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...

and second in

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

, beating

Västerås SK Fotboll Västerås SK is a Swedish football club based in Västerås. The club was formed on 29 January 1904. Season to season ''* League restructuring in 2006 resulted in a new division being created at Tier 3 and subsequent divisions dropping a ...

5–3 in the play-offs to win promotion into the

. They were relegated automatically in

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...

, finishing one point behind Örgryte IS in the play-offs. He scored 15 goals in 71 league games for the club. He then moved on to Västra Frölunda IF and made 20 appearances for the club in

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...

, as they posted a 7th-place finish in the top-flight. In February 2000, he moved to

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

to sign for Brian Horton's

. He scored his first goal for the club on 7 March, in a 2–1 defeat to Crewe Alexandra at

Gresty Road Gresty Road or the Alexandra Stadium, currently known as the Mornflake Stadium for sponsorship reasons, is a football stadium in Crewe, Cheshire, England. The home ground of Crewe Alexandra, it has an all-seated capacity of 10,153. History Cre ...

, and finished the 1999–2000 campaign with four goals in 15 games. He was one of five players placed on the transfer list in December 2000 following a humiliating defeat to non-League

Canvey Island Canvey Island is a town, civil parishes in England, civil parish and reclaimed island in the Thames estuary, near Southend-on-Sea, in the Castle Point district, in the county of Essex, England. It has an area of and a population of 38,170.Office ...

in the

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

. He finished the 2000–01 campaign with two goals in 23 appearances. He was an unused substitute in the 2001 Football League Trophy final. He then returned to Sweden to play for

. They were relegated out of the

Superettan Superettan (; meaning the super first (division)) is an association football league and the second highest league in the league system of Swedish men's football. Contested by 16 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with Al ...

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

, finishing behind

Assyriska The following is a List of Assyrian-Syriac football teams in Sweden. The Swedish football league system currently has ten levels, with the first five being governed by the Swedish Football Association. The sixth to tenth levels are controlled by ...

goal difference Goal difference, goal differential or points difference is a form of tiebreaker used to rank sport teams which finish on equal points in a league competition. Either "goal difference" or "points difference" is used, depending on whether matches ar ...

. GAIS finished second in Division 2 in

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

, before winning promotion as Västra Götaland champions in

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

, finishing above

Ljungskile SK Ljungskile SK is a Swedish football club located in Ljungskile, a town within Uddevalla Municipality. They currently play in the Swedish third tier, Division 1. History Ljungskile SK, formed in 1926, is famous for their promotions between 19 ...

on goal difference. The Gamla Ullevi club finished sixth in the Superettan in

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 6 ...

Career statistics

Honours

BK Häcken * Swedish Football Division 1 play-offs:

Port Vale *

Football League Trophy The English Football League Trophy, known for sponsorship purposes as the Papa Johns Trophy after restaurant chain Papa John's Pizza, is an annual English association football knockout competition open to all clubs in EFL League One and EFL Leag ...

: 2000–01 GAIS * Swedish football Division 2 Västra Götaland:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Viljanen, Ville 1971 births Living people Footballers from Helsinki Men's association football forwards Finnish men's footballers Finnish expatriate men's footballers Finland men's international footballers Expatriate men's footballers in Sweden BK Häcken players Västra Frölunda IF players Expatriate men's footballers in England Port Vale F.C. players GAIS players Allsvenskan players Superettan players Ettan Fotboll players Division 2 (Swedish football) players English Football League players