Jan Viktor Olsson (born 18 March 1944) 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 ...

who played as a

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 ...

. He represented GAIS,

VfB Stuttgart Verein für Bewegungsspiele Stuttgart 1893 e. V., commonly known as VfB Stuttgart (), is a German sports club based in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg. The club's football team is currently part of Germany's first division, the Bundesliga. VfB S ...

, and

Örgryte IS Örgryte Idrottssällskap, commonly referred to as Örgryte IS, Örgryte () or (especially locally) ÖIS or Öis, is a Swedish sports club based in Gothenburg. It consists of four departments, namely bowling, football, athletics and wrestling. H ...

during a club career that spanned between 1965 and 1977. A full international between 1967 and 1973, 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 ...

and scored one goal for the Sweden national team and played at the 1970 FIFA World Cup. He was awarded

Guldbollen Guldbollen (''Golden Ball'') is a Swedish football award given by ''Aftonbladet'' and the Swedish Football Association to the best male Swedish footballer each year. History The award was created by Bengt Liljedahl and between 1946 to 1965 it was ...

as Sweden's best footballer of the year in 1970.

Club career

Olsson played for Gais before he became a professional with

in 1969. In 1971, he returned to Gais. He is remembered as a rough midfielder and defender.

International career

In the 1970 FIFA World Cup Olsson marked the Italian forward

Gigi Riva Luigi "Gigi" Riva (; born 7 November 1944) is an Italian former professional footballer who played as a centre-forward. Considered to be one of the best players of his generation, as well as one of the greatest strikers of all time, Riva enjoye ...

with tenacity and vigor. In total he was capped 22 times for the Sweden national team.

Post-playing career

Olsson was the manager of Eintracht Braunschweig from July 1994 until September 1995.

Honours

Individual * Stor Grabb: 1969 *

: 1970

References

External links

* 1944 births Living people People from Sotenäs Municipality Sportspeople from Västra Götaland County Swedish footballers Association football midfielders Sweden international footballers 1970 FIFA World Cup players Bundesliga players GAIS players VfB Stuttgart players Swedish football managers Eintracht Braunschweig managers Swedish expatriate footballers Swedish expatriate sportspeople in Germany Expatriate footballers in Germany Expatriate football managers in Germany {{Sweden-footy-bio-stub