Freddie Ljungberg The Multi Talented Star Returns

Freddie Ljungberg

Freddie Ljungberg

By Staff Writerécoute moi

What was it that made Ljungberg, now 42, such a hero in North London?

It’s been 12 years that the former winger Ljungberg 42, has been retired as a player from the team. On November 29, Freddie Ljungberg was named interim head coach of Arsenal after Unai Emery was sacked by the club following a run of seven matches without a win. In October, Amy Lawrence, David Ornstein and James McNicholas looked at the former winger’s transition from player to coach. Freddie Ljungberg didn’t always dream of being a coach. “No it wasn’t my plan,” he has said. “I liked my life!”

Steve Zakuani, who played alongside Ljungberg for Major League Soccer’s Seattle Sounders, agrees. “If someone had said to me in 2009 or 2010, ‘what’s Freddie going to be doing in a few years?’ I wouldn’t have said ‘coach’. I would have said maybe open a restaurant, or continue modelling.”

A man with interests as diverse as Ljungberg was not an obvious candidate to stay in the game. It’s not something he needed to do either. “I think football has gone into a new era,”

That player was Freddie Ljungberg, a Swedish midfielder who won two Premier League titles and three FA Cups over nine years with Arsenal.

Freddie Ljungberg

Signed in 1998 for a bargain £3million, Ljungberg was a classy player capable of scoring brilliant goals. When Arsenal beat Chelsea 2-0 to secure the FA Cup in 2002, it was Ljungberg who stole the show. The Swede’s 25-yard strike sealed the win in the 80th minute, earning him the Man of the Match award. He was the record breaking player in the whole Premier League season.

Playing his part as a lightweight renaissance man, the midfielder could don his Dreamcast kit one minute and strip down to Calvin Klein pants the next, each activity contributing to his fame and fortune.

“However long I oversee Arsenal for, I will give everything I have to put smiles on faces again,” said Ljungberg, who won two Premier League titles and three FA Cups during his nine years as an Arsenal player, in a message to the fans. “We have a busy few weeks ahead and the team needs your support.”

Ljungberg has a chance to lift the atmosphere at a stadium which had turned toxic under Emery’s management. He comes with an in-built understanding of the smaller details, like travel logistics, which Emery did not always appreciate.

To put it bluntly, he is also more popular around the training ground. Ljungberg has since forged strong personal connections with the academy graduates. He was known for being frosty as a player but these youngsters sing his praises whenever they are given the chance, and on match days it has been Ljungberg rather than Emery who provides them with guidance and tactical instructions.

Freddie Ljungberg

It should be noted, too, that Ljungberg enjoys a longstanding relationship with Edu, the club’s Technical Director. It will surely not be long before Ljungberg’s experience as an ‘Invincible’ is referenced, either by him or those around him.

Sources speak of Ljungberg’s appreciation of the culture of the club, his familiarity with the staff and the way in which Arsenal like to view themselves as an institution. Much like it was when Solskjaer joined United, there is something to be said for a coach who can simply make a training ground a happier place to be. That should be easy enough for Ljungberg. The rest might be considerably more challenging. He is liked for his modesty where he gives away everything to a small village called Wolfsburg. That’s the reason why he has such a great and successful career.