Liedholm didnt play for Roma but he coached them a couple of times.

The Gre-No-Li guys had big success home in Sweden (two of them in Norrköping and Gren in Göteborg) but at the time it was in Sweden kind of an ugly thing to earn money on sports, so they werent sure if they should move abroad or not. Gunnar Nordahl moved to Milan in January 1949, 28 years old, and the same summer Gunnar Gren and Nils Liedholm took the step to the same club. Nordahl was a pacy hard-shooting scorer while Gren was more of a center tank, like Christian Vieri. Nils Liedholm didnt score as much goals since he often played as some kind of attacking midfielder, but he was a great passer and a great coach (who teached Carlo Ancelotti, Fabio Capello and Giovanni Trapattoni everything he knew, and also was the first one who sent Franco Baresi and Paolo Maldini onto the pitch).

Why we suddenly had five or six world class players is something of a mystery. In the Swedish national team at the time, they didnt allow pro players, but if they would have, I think that we would perhaps have won the World Cup 1950 or 1954. When the rules were changed, the players were 35+ and yet took the silver medal.

We’ve always had some good attackers, like those you mentioned… Edström is from Sweden, but his name is actually Ralf. He is drunk a lot nowadays. And sometimes he do radio commentary. And sometimes he combines being drunk and doing radio commentary…

Ive never heard of Bengt Hansen so he’s probably a Dane.

Its a fun thing by the way that almost every good Swedish striker today has had a spell in Holland. Actually, seven of our ten best strikers have been there:

Henrik Larsson (Feyenoord)
Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Ajax)
Marcus Allbäck (Heerenveen)
Johan Elmander (Feyenoord/NEC)
Fredrik Berglund (Roda)
Marcus Berg (Groningen)
Lasse Nilsson (Heerenveen)

And you know, a couple of Brazilian players that played in Sweden also went to Holland, like Ari and Afonso.

This trend is going to be important in the future. Many Swedish talents say that they first want to go to Holland because of its reputation in developing talents from promising to high class. Dusan Djuric, huge midfield/forward talent who will move to Holland in a close future and Behrang Safari, left back/winger from Malmö FF, has said that they will definitely move to Holland when they move abroad. One of them might move already in January.

But I get your point. I didn’t know about Liedholm and Roma. Cool story. Did he play for AS Roma?

What’s with that famous Swedish strikers trio? Can you tell us some more about them? Their strength? Where they played? And how come that suddenly in the 50s (?) Sweden had three world class strikers? Well, you always had great strikers…. Kindvall, Larsson, Petterson, Dahl, Allback, Lars Edstrom?? Was Edstrom a Swede? Or a Dane? And that little dude, Bengt Hansen? Noooo…. Bengt Schmidt Hansen or something…

Wouters doesnt seem to be handling the pressure too well.

Lerkot, do these people still live ?

Seriously…Liedholm died didn’t he?

Why would you want Wouters out?

But I think they need to replace Wouters faster. Maybe with some ubertemporary solution. Bobby Robson? Or Kees Rijvers for a month or two? I mean, if Liedholm and Feldkamp could, then he can.