Sports journalist Bengt Grive was born in 1921, so he had actually seen most of the great Swedish players in his professional life. Grive wrote in his book Glitter och Stänk (1989): "Kurre Hamrin was a dribbler and opportunist and his big 'number' was the nutmeg. But there is no way he could compare to Torbjörn and his feints. He didn't have the Gothenburger's action range his shot was not remarkable in comparison. Gunnar Gren was techincally at the same level as Nilsson, but slower: Gren's footwork was somewhat heavy. Gunnar Nordahl easily beats Torbjörn in terms of shooting power, but hardly in anything else. Ralf Edström was better in acrobacy, but not on the floor. His vision was a excellent as Torbjörn's, but he lacked pace. Nacka Skoglund's dribbling ability was more spectacular and he was as quick, but his shot was clearly inferiour and his defensive work was not impressive."
I think Nilsson has a good claim for 100 best strikers ever but not top 100 overall. Like I said: not succeeding abroad and lack of NT performances damages his standing (and should damage his standing). On the other hand, many of the arguments raised against him here are not very convincing to me, personally (but that's just me). I agree that Nilsson (from what I've seen) had no luxury status within that team & not just a goalscorer. Also agree that consistency over time in Europe puts away many doubts.
Did he say anything about Liedholm? Too early to compare Brolin or Larsson to Torbjorn unfortunately but it would have also been interesting (would he have said that he was a mixture of both maybe?). From what I know of the players mentioned I can understand that he seems to be talking sense (whether or not he's actually saying that Torbjorn is better than all those - I'm not sure that can be implied from the comments). Anyway, good to know about some of these more 'hidden' players. I guess Tom Lund of Norway might be considered another. I can understand why not many would put these players in a potential top 100 but that's not to say they were far off talent wise necessarily I suppose. There are some clips on Youtube of course but nothing that matches your experience of him perhaps krokko (and Puck I seem to remember you already mentioned him as a player you thought had talent, a while back): It is hard to know how his talents could be shown at the highest level I suppose. Maybe he could be seen as like a Swedish Steve Bull, with the skills of his team-mate Robbie Dennison thrown in i.e they played for Wolves in the 2nd tier English league not the 1st. His record does make him comparable to a Larsson in some ways though perhaps, and there seem to be reasons he didn't play as much for Sweden indeed. Scoring goals (while not being short of skills and setup play either) is at least impressive on the European stage, even with the goals shared between games vs minnows and some bigger teams. Would you consider him for an all-time Swedish XI krokko (or Puck) do you think? Maybe depends how many strikers/forwards are included (1, 2 or even 3)?
Tom Lund was a high class player. Quite a few big clubs wanted him, but Lund was afraid of flying and preferred to stay in Lilleström. I saw him 2 or 3 times vs Sweden and remember being impressed (I was 11-12 years old, though). Nilsson again. I have direct visual memories of him, but I also remember Swedish radio commentators actually screaming (very rare indeed) when he made some of his more spectacular moves. Nilsson arrived to Göteborg from Jonsered in 1974, when IFK played in the 2nd division and had crowds of 2,000-3,000. In 1975 there were 46,000 - still in the 2nd division - vs Kalmar and in 1976 even 51,000, vs GAIS. In November 1976, when IFK had won the promotion, they invited EC champs Bayern Munich to the Ullevi Stadium. 27,000 people turned out to see Torbjörn Nilsson score 2 and Ove Kindvall one goal in a 3-2 victory (Franz Beckenbauer & Gerd Müller on target for the Germans), and der Kaiser was truly impressed after that match. All time Swedish XI? Very difficult... if you want the players to be able to interact or just want to select the best makes a big difference...
Thanks very much. Just to check again - Grive didn't say anything about Liedholm in comparison to Nilsson or generally? Cos sometimes when a notable player is left out of a comparison it's hard to know the reason - e.g Johan Cruyff was talking about Cristiano Ronaldo in comparison to Best and Law I remember not so long ago...but he didn't mention Bobby Charlton so it's hard to know if he felt Best and Law were actually the best players from the 60's, or C.Ronaldo couldn't be at Charlton's level yet, or Charlton was more of a midfielder (could also apply to Liedholm). I know that Sweden is a case where the best player would be debateable: Larsson was golden player. Many polls such as this one might favour Nordahl (and some historical lists, books too). Some historical lists, books might favour Liedholm and he did win a vote a while ago too I noticed via Wikipedia. Hamrin said Gren and Nordahl were 'better' than Liedholm but he was more complete I think. Hamrin himself could be chosen or even Skoglund. Nilsson would be an 'alternative' choice as might Brolin. Many people now would say Ibrahimovic (and you said a recent poll had I think - but we don't know the voters and whether an equivalent English poll would choose Rooney or Beckham!; most English polls with enough votes would not though I'm sure).
Oh yeah Ove Kindvall is another name - I should think Puck can tell us more about him of course! Interesting that the comments about Cruyff krokko posted re: Ballon d'or voting,seemed to make Kindvall comparable in some aspects but also notable how positive the comments were about Cruyff in 1970.
No, there's nothing about Lidas in Grive's book, probably because he was comparing strikers/wingers. Another "forgotten" Swedish player is Arne Selmosson, who spent almost his entire carreer in Italy. Hamrin once said: "My ambition is to become as great as 'Raggio di luna' (the Moonbeam, his nickname), but it is unlikely I will". The Italian FA put some bureaucratic obstacles to Udinese's signing of him, and the people of Udine were said to have threatened the secession to Austria. He then spent some marcellous years in both Lazio and Roma and is still very much remembered by fans of both clubs. He crossed the Tiber in the summer of 1958 (Lazio were in a financial crisis and Roma paid 130 milion lire for him), causing mayhem. Euphoria among Roma fans and violent riots among Laziali with several people injured.
Played four caps for Sweden. I know that professional + playing abroad did not help but why only four caps?
Thanks. I know that David Brooks, for the book I mentioned before, the All-Time World Cup did research in the countries included before finalising his proposed squads and Selmosson isn't among the names he mentions so it's interesting to read about him too. I can't recall if comme did include him among his lists from memory or whether he was one he knew of (there has to be a limit on those, though comme did do a very complete and exhaustive job with his research it's clear).
I haven't even looked him up yet! But though krokko is probably about to answer, I wonder if the professionalism/playing abroad factor came into it. Although Nordahl, Liedholm, Gren etc did pick up a reasonable number of caps before moving to Italy (and the latter two added to them later in 1958 of course).
Kindvall was indeed very fast both with and without the ball. And scored a lot of goals. But I think Nilsson was the more talented player overall based on the EC games I've seen from both, and Nilsson also boosts the trophies and achievements (I looked at old reports and they indeed mention how Nilsson + colleagues were heavily kicked against Barcelona and HSV - Nilsson was in fact literally kicked out of the game against HSV in the first leg). My interest was maybe also cultivated by another striker playing in the Netherlands, Stefan Pettersson (Dennis Bergkamp rates him very high) who was unfavourably compared with him, and he himself talked positively about Nilsson. Also, with all due respect for Tom Lund, but this Norwegian even didn't show his value in continental games (or for his country). Very difficult to see how he would fare against top defenders (which Nilsson indeed did, also vs West Germany in 1985, true). NB: the "champions of Europe" book by Glanville mentions, too, that Malmo was probably cheated by blackmailed referees against Bayern and AC Milan indeed. Seems credible. That referee of the Bayern match received all sorts of strange gifts.
Mentioned it earlier but Ralf Edstrom is still a big name over here. Has also fine 1974WC stats btw. Sadly, he damaged his back and knees IIRC somewhere around 1976-77 and was never the same level again. But that happened often in those days. I also thought about translating an interview with Rob Rensenbrink; it is said (again) that he had six surgeries on his knees during his active career, and after his active career he wasn't able to play with a ball because of those broken knees. Quite sad, I thought. How would you rank Skoglund vs Hamrin? I think the latter overall perhaps but how about abilities?
Once a player had made one match as a professional he was banned from the NT. One funny thing about Torbjörn Nilsson: when he was kicked to the ground he always used to apologize to the defender who had kicked him.
Liedholm, Gren and such gained caps after they had featured as a professional. What was the policy? EDIT: I see, 1958WC was an exception.
Ah yes, my famous bias against the Dutchl, my bias for the English and Germans. As evidenced by the inclusion of five Dutch strikers, by my omission of Miroslav Klose and Michael Owen (the only Ballon d'Or winner not to make the list). All left out for the same reason as Kluivert, they didnt match their international exploits on the domestic stage. Kluivert never once scored more than 20 goals in a league season.
But you're saying here it is surprising he's not included in anyone's top 50. I often get the impression that people here are artificially surprised by the absence of someone from a top 50 or 100. Essentially in the top 50 there are only a handful of discretionary places because most inclusions are obvious. For instance there are 49 players who either won the Ballon d'Or or came mulitiple times in the top 3. That's before we even think about Pele, Maradona, Garrincha etc. So the idea someone would select Nilsson just seems amazingly far fetched to me. The random people selected so far from outside that kind of cast are almost all what I would brand as "personal choices" ie personal favourites of the voter rather than actually obvious candidates. Nilsson had a couple of 5th placed votes in the Bal
Don't have the energy to search it for every season (it will not convince you anyway, neither it should) but in his first Barcelona year (1998-99) he had apart from 15 league goals also 15-18 assists according to Spanish sources and magazines I own (on the internet the number of 16 assists flows around). How many had 'limited footballers' Klose and Owen at their peak? There is much more than just goals as measurement. How many of the goals are penalties? (Maybe also Owen and Klose deserve a place by the way. That is not the point.) Not to mention that you include the national team and domestic stage in the equation, but leave out the European club stage, which you so aptly deal with a page earlier (see your own link, used as argument here). http://www.rsssf.com/players/players-in-ec.html
I see now that indeed questions were asked in the thread about why Klose and Owen did not make the top 100 of forwards/strikers. Which was my main point and objection (see the part you quoted, which was a reply to a statement of yours about 'no one objecting').
What does any of that have to do with whether Nilsson belongs in a top 50 of all time players? A case can easily be made to include either him or Kluivert in a top 100 strikers, but to do so you have to leave out someone with a good claim themselves. There are tons of players who have a similar record from a similar era to Kluivert who also didn't make it. Trezeguet, Drogba, Salas, Hakan Sukur etc. But ultimately none of these players have a cat in hell's chance of getting into a top 50 or 100 of players of all-time.
Nice rhetoric but I can also ask how citing the 20 goals figure by yourself is relevant. You chose to quote that part of the post and not the parts dealing with Nilsson. Like I suggested, even if Nilsson would be a sure top 40 striker, one cannot count on to see someone objecting. Salas a similar record? With 9 goals at the European stage. Great. And yes, for me your anti-Dutch bias (for what it's worth, you cite it; what is the relationship with Nilsson?), the denigrating stance and usual downplaying, is beyond doubt for me. But what is the relationship with Nilsson?
Because your post was a clear dig at me yet again. Surely you can see that Nilsson has no place in a discussion of the top 50 players of all-time? My point was fairly clear. He doesn't belong in this company. He has nothing on his CV to make anyone outside of Sweden even contemplate putting him in a top 50 of all-time. I have not seen anyone put him in a positional top 50. The achievements which Krokko outlined are impressive, but given the calibre of players we are measuring him against a single UEFA Cup victory is not nearly sufficient to put him in this class. End of story.
Who talked about a top 50 place to begin with? No one here. First get the basics right. Just cheap rhetoric, yet again. And yes, you can see that I did not filter out Nilsson as candidates for a possible top 100 AT list (thus also not top 50), and later I said explicitly that he is not top 100 all time. Thing was that no one objecting to your rankings is no argument. But OK, good luck with elevating the likes of Sol Campbell or Jimmy Greaves to a fixed top 10 position based on domestic perceptions and domestic feats mostly. If English was not the lingua franca everyone had laughed about this. LOL. I refer to my post above. You started with mentioning aspects (like the 20 goals barrier) not related to Nilsson at all. I just signalled that it is not logical to see someone object. Cheap rhetoric.
Are you feeble minded or something? From Krokko earlier in this thread (entitled "Daily Mail Top 50 players ever" in case you had missed it): "Injustice for players from small/peripheric countries I'd say. Among the players I never see mentioned (not even among top 100) are Van Himst, Torbjörn Nilsson (top scorer in the European Cups in the 80s), Frank Arnesen, José Águas, Igor Chislenko, Mario Corso, Tommy Gemmell, Wlodek Lubanski, Jimmy Greaves, Francis Lee, Marius Trésor, Pirri, Overath, Sekularac, Shesterniev, Jurion, Voronin, Van Hanegem, Alan Ball, Faas Wilkes, Karl Aage Præst and Uli Stielike. Safet Susic and Zvonimir Boban have been mentioned once or twice, and always by people from ex Yugoslavia." The implication being clearly that it was an injustice that Nilsson (among others) was never mentioned in a top 50 ever (or even among a top 100). My position, made clear from my first post here, was that, without looking to be overly harsh to someone who was a very good player, Nilsson has no business in a top 50, top 100 or a top 200. At a real push he might somehow find a way into a top 500. However, given the number of "locked down" names, the idea that he would get a nomination for the top 50 ever in this thread and that it could be legitimate (ie not comparable to the placing of Magico Gonazalez as the 2nd best player ever) is not feasible. He is not of that class and was never regarded as being in the uppermost echelon of players during his career, outside of Sweden. Hence the idea of someone including him in a top 50 or top 100 of all time is to me unlikely. That is not an insult to him or to Krokko (who has made some very good contributions to this thread). Just a statement of my opinion. That is all.
This seems more like a debate of principles. For me rating a player based on how impressive his highlight reel looks is a silly concept. I understand the greatness in that achievment from your pesonal and a Swedish point of view. Local hero status we've seen so often around here. I see how Nilsson could be a Top 100 player for you if you value those two things I mentioned, but in a more objective approach he isn't even close.