Joachim Björklund (born 15 March 1971) 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 centre back. He is the assistant coach of

Sarpsborg 08 Sarpsborg 08 Fotballforening, commonly known as Sarpsborg 08 or simply Sarpsborg (), is a Norwegian football club based in Sarpsborg, playing in Eliteserien. Sarpsborg 08 and its predecessors played in 1. divisjon from 2005 to 2010. In 2010, the ...

in the Norwegian Eliteserien. Beginning his playing career with Östers IF and SK Brann, Björklund went on to win three Swedish championships with IFK Göteborg before representing clubs in the Scottish Premiership, Serie A, La Liga, and the Premier League. A full international between 1992 and 2000, Björklund won 78 caps for the Sweden national team and was a part of the teams that competed at

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 ...

, Euro 2000, and finished third 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 ...

Club career

Taking the leap from junior team obscurity at Östers IF to becoming a star in Brann, Björklund was later sold to IFK Göteborg. There, his side achieved a surprise 3–1 victory over

Manchester United Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

in the group stage of the 1994–95 Champions League which ultimately helped them win Group A ahead of FC Barcelona, Manchester United, and Galatasaray before being eliminated in the quarter-finals by

FC Bayern Munich Fußball-Club Bayern München e. V. (FCB, ), also known as FC Bayern (), Bayern Munich, or simply Bayern, is a German professional sports club based in Munich, Bavaria. It is best known for its professional men's football team, which play ...

. At the end of the following season, he was transferred to Vicenza in Serie A, and the following year to

Rangers A Ranger is typically someone in a military/paramilitary or law enforcement role specializing in patrolling a given territory, called “ranging”. The term most often refers to: * Park ranger or forest ranger, a person charged with protecting and ...

in the Scottish Premiership, for £2.2 million. where he won a Scottish league championship medal. He moved to Valencia for £2.5 million on 20 June 1998 and spent three years at Valencia before joining Venezia in Italy, where he played for just one season. While at Valencia, he helped the team reach the 1999–2000 and

2000–01 UEFA Champions League The 2000–01 UEFA Champions League was the 46th season of the UEFA Champions League, UEFA's premier European club football tournament, and the ninth since it was rebranded from the "European Champion Clubs' Cup" or "European Cup". The competitio ...

finals. Björklund joined

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

in January 2002 for £1.5 million, but was unable to prevent them from being relegated in the following 2002–03 season. However the 2003–04 season was better, as he helped Sunderland finish third in

Division One The Football League First Division was a division of the Football League in England from 1888 until 2004. It was the top division in the English football league system from the season 1888–89 until 1991–92, a century in which the First ...

and reach the FA Cup semi finals yet his services were deemed to be no longer required by manager Mick McCarthy so he joined Wolverhampton Wanderers, who had just been relegated from the Premier League. He left the club and retired after just one injury-hampered season that restricted him to just five appearances in total as the club failed to win an immediate return to the top flight.

International career

For many years he formed a successful central defensive partnership with Patrik Andersson for the

Swedish national team Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

. Björklund was selected for the UEFA Euro 1992,

and UEFA Euro 2000. At the 1994 FIFA World Cup, he helped the team finish third behind Brazil and Italy. He was also a member of the Swedish squad that competed at the

1992 Summer Olympics The 1992 Summer Olympics ( es, Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1992, ca, Jocs Olímpics d'estiu de 1992), officially known as the Games of the XXV Olympiad ( es, Juegos de la XXV Olimpiada, ca, Jocs de la XXV Olimpíada) and commonly known as ...

in Barcelona. Due to lack of playing time at his club Valencia, Björklund was dropped from the Swedish squad during the early stages of the 2002 FIFA World Cup qualifying. Disappointed, he decided to retire from the national team at the age of 30.

Post-playing career

Having finished his playing career, he worked as a scout for Valencia, mainly targeting the

Nordic countries The Nordic countries (also known as the Nordics or ''Norden''; literal translation, lit. 'the North') are a geographical and cultural region in Northern Europe and the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It includes the sovereign states of Denmar ...

. He also worked as a pundit for Swedish Canal+, covering La Liga football, for several years.

Assistant at Hammarby IF

On 28 January 2018, Björklund was appointed assistant coach of

Hammarby IF Hammarby Idrottsförening ("Hammarby Sports Club"), commonly known as Hammarby IF or simply Hammarby ( or, especially locally, ), is a Swedish sports club located in Stockholm, with a number of member organizations active in a variety of differe ...

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 ...

, under head coach Stefan Billborn. In their first season, the club finished 4th in the table, after being placed first in the league mid-season. In 2019, Hammarby started the league play in a mediocre fashion, but made a strong finish to the season (with eight straight wins during between match day 22 and 30) and ultimately finished 3rd in Allsvenskan. This meant that the club qualified for the

2020–21 UEFA Europa League The 2020–21 UEFA Europa League was the 50th season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 12th season since it was renamed from the UEFA Cup to the UEFA Europa League. Villarreal defeated Manchester United i ...

, their first continental competition in over ten years. On 5 January 2020, both Billborn and Björklund signed a three-year contract extension with Hammarby. In a season postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the side disappointedly finished 8th in the table. The club won 3–0 against Puskás Akadémia in the first round of the 2020–21 UEFA Europa League, but was eliminated from the tournament in the second round against

Lech Poznań Kolejowy Klub Sportowy Lech Poznań S.A., commonly referred to as KKS Lech Poznań or simply Lech Poznań (), is a Polish professional association football, football club based in Poznań and currently competing in the Ekstraklasa, the nation' ...

through a 0–3 loss. On 30 May 2021, Björklund won the

2020–21 Svenska Cupen The 2020–21 Svenska Cupen was the 65th season of the Svenska Cupen and the ninth season with the current format. Hammarby won the cup for the first time and secured a spot in the second qualifying round of the 2021–22 UEFA Europa Conference Le ...

with Hammarby IF, through a 5–4 win on penalties (0–0 after full-time) against BK Häcken in the final. On 11 June 2021, Hammarby decided to terminate Stefan Billborn's contract, with the club placed 8th in the 2021 Allsvenskan table after eight rounds, although Björklund stayed in his position for the rest of the year.

Assistant at Sarpsborg 08

On 9 January 2022, Björklund reunited with Stefan Billborn, becoming his assistant coach at

in the Norwegian Eliteserien.

Personal life

He is the son of Swedish football coach

Karl-Gunnar Björklund Karl-Gunnar "Kalle" Björklund (born 2 December 1953) is a Swedish former football player and coach. He has served as coach in several clubs in Scandinavia. As a player, Björklund earned 14 caps for Sweden, and the midfielder won Allsvenskan wit ...

, and the father of footballer Kalle Björklund who represents Hammarby IF. His maternal uncle is Tommy Svensson, the

Sweden national football team The Sweden national football team ( sv, svenska fotbollslandslaget) represents Sweden in men's international football and it is controlled by the Swedish Football Association, the governing body of football in Sweden. Sweden's home ground is F ...

manager from 1991 to 1997.

Career statistics

International

Honours

Player

IFK Göteborg *

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 peace ...

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 Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank 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 ...

Rangers *

Scottish Premier Division The Scottish Football League Premier Division was, from 1975 until 1998, the top division of the Scottish Football League and the entire Scottish football league system. It lay above the Scottish Football League First, Second and (from 1994) Th ...

: 1996–97 * Scottish League Cup: 1996–97 Valencia * Copa del Rey: 1998–99 *

Supercopa de España The Supercopa de España or the ''Spanish Super Cup'' is a super cup tournament in Spanish football. Founded in 1982 as a two-team competition, the current version has been contested since 2019–20 by four teams: the winners and runners-up of ...

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 ...

* UEFA Champions League runner-up: 1999–2000, 2000–01 *

UEFA Intertoto Cup The UEFA Intertoto Cup (from la, Inter, 'between' + german: toto, 'betting pool'),Most precisely, from (football pool); cf. often abbreviated and more known in the German-speaking world as UI Cup and originally called the International Foot ...

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 ...

Sweden * FIFA World Cup third place:

Manager

* Svenska Cupen:

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

(assistant coach)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bjorklund, Joachim 1971 births Living people People from Växjö 1994 FIFA World Cup players Swedish footballers Association football central defenders Sweden international footballers Sweden youth international footballers Olympic footballers of Sweden Footballers at the 1992 Summer Olympics UEFA Euro 1992 players UEFA Euro 2000 players Allsvenskan players Eliteserien players Serie A players Scottish Football League players La Liga players Premier League players English Football League players Östers IF players SK Brann players IFK Göteborg players L.R. Vicenza players Rangers F.C. players Valencia CF players Venezia F.C. players Sunderland A.F.C. players Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. players Hammarby Fotboll non-playing staff Sarpsborg 08 FF non-playing staff Swedish expatriate footballers Swedish expatriate sportspeople in Norway Expatriate footballers in Norway Swedish expatriate sportspeople in Italy Expatriate footballers in Italy Swedish expatriate sportspeople in Scotland Expatriate footballers in Scotland Swedish expatriate sportspeople in Spain Expatriate footballers in Spain Swedish expatriate sportspeople in England Expatriate footballers in England Sportspeople from Kronoberg County