Fredrik "Freddie" Ljungberg - A part of The Invincibles

The year is 1982 and we are located in Halmstad, a city with about 50,000 inhabitants in Halland Sweden. A young boy is about to go this his first ever football training with a club called Halmstad BK. He was only five years old, but he already knew what he wanted to do with his life, and his name was Fredrik Ljungberg.

One of a kinda

His parents noticed early in the young boys career that he loved that damn football. He played with it all the time. Indoor. Out in the garden. In kindergarten.
Fredrik brought his purple Adidas shoes with him to the first training.
Some teammates laughed. Others wondered who the new guy was. They probably thought it was some village boy who had nothing to do there. But when he took his first steps on the somewhat muddy football field, no one laughed anymore. From day one, Olle Eriksson - the boy coach in Halmstad - knew that this village boy would be something special.

In 1994, Halmstad BK decided to sign a professional contract with him who at this timeas was only 16 years old. He had developed an extraordinary winning mentality. Losing was the worst thing he knew.
The same year was he promoted and used in the first squad, but he was still just in high school.
On October 23, 1994, he made his debut in Allsvenskan against AIK. A certain Johan Mjällby, future Celtic legend and national team player, played there. Mjällby was seven years older than Fredrik, but despite that he had incredible difficulties in marking that 16-year-old Freddie. Many, many years later, he was asked who his nightmare opponent was during his time in Sweden at AIK.

The answer? You can probably figure that out by now.

Beating Allsvenskan

The following year - 1995 - the success story would continue for the new 17-year-old. Until September 10, he had to start almost all his matches on the bench and in some cases he even had to take the step up to the stands. That September afternoon, however, would change everything. Halmstad met Örebro at home on Örjans Vall. The match lasted a long time and weighed in at the result 1-1 when coach Mats Jingblad chose to make a change.
With only a few minutes left, Halmstad's number ten jogs onto the pitch. When the final signal sounds, Halmstad has taken three points. 2-1 comes in the last second of the match signed Fredrik Ljungberg. After that piece of art, he would never return to the cold and lonely bench.

Fredrik continues to deliver fantastic efforts and when Halmstad receives the then big team Parma in champions cup, everyone believes that Parma would crush Halmstad. It's David vs. Goliath.
Not a single soul believes in a Halmstad win, but ninety minutes later it is magnificent 3-0 on the scoreboard. Afterwards, everyone talks about a player - Freddie.

In the coming seasons, Fredrik came to dominate the Allvenskan. He won the cup, the league and was often the team's best player in Europe. The success did not go unnoticed. Halfway into 1998, Barcelona, Chelsea, Aston Villa, Parma and Arsenal all expressed their desire to sign the 20-year-old. What he did not know then was that scouts from Arsenal had already followed him for over a year. And it would only take a few months before Arsène Wenger picked up the phone and made a call to Sweden.

During his four years in Halmstad, he had attracted glances from all over Europe, but something was missing, that little extra that would make all teams in the whole world want him. September 5, 1998 was to be that day. The year before, Fredrik had made his debut in the Swedish national team and the following year he had played a starting place.
In the European Championship qualifier against England, he got to start. It was a hyper-important match at Råsunda against an English opposition that had fantastic players, i.a. a Michael Owen who was considered by many to be the world's best player.

That September evening at Råsunda came to change his whole life. Sweden won the match. 2-1. Andreas Andersson and Johan Mjällby became goal scorers, but no one talked about either Andersson or Mjällby after the match. Nobody talked about Michael Owen after the match. Everyone, everyone who had seen the match, talked about a guy with scattered hair and number nine on his back.

Professional career starts

At home in London, Arsène Wenger sat and watched the match. Throughout the year, he had received promising scouting reports from his scouts, but had nevertheless never seen him play with his own eyes. It took only five days before Ljungber's agent Roger Ljung called him with good news. Five. Then everything was ready. Fredrik Ljungberg was a gunner.

September is a month that Fredrik probably holds dear. Debut in Halmstad, moved to Arsenal and then also his first goal in The Gunners. On 21 September 1998, Arsenal host rivals Manchester United at home at Highbury. With eleven minutes left, Arsenal leads 2-0 thanks to goals from Tony Adams and Nicolas Anelka. That is when the Swede gets to take his first steps at Highbury.
Four minutes and forty-two seconds later, he makes fun of one of the world's best goalkeepers - Peter Smeichel - when he annoyingly easily chips in 3-0 after a pass by Marc Overmars. After the match, he admits that he has never been as nervous as he was seconds before he entered the field.

"Scoring goals in my debut against Manchester United created a bond between me and Arsenal fans," Freddie said afterwards.

After the double 1997/1998 - just a couple of months before Freddie arrived - Arsenal had to settle for three straight second places in the Premier League. Manchester United simply had the upper hand, but all that would change in 2001/2002.
A year before, Arsenal had been in the FA Cup final. Against Liverpool. At the Millennium Stadium. In Cardiff. In the second half, Fredrik and Arsenal made it 1-0. But Michael Owen turned the match on its own (two goals) and gave in again for the European Championship qualifier loss against Sweden three years earlier. After the match, Ljungberg is speechless. Just a few tens of minutes from becoming a hero. I hate losing, he says.
During the summer, Ljungberg will be rewarded with a new five-year contract worth 200 million. His agent Roger Ljung is happy and believes that Arsenal will see the best of Ljungberg in the years to come.

The 2001/2002 season will be one big success story, both for him and the club. But it does not look like that at first. The Gunners lose four games at home and are more than ten points behind Manchester United halfway through the season. But Arsenal would come again, stronger than ever before.

After the winter period, something happens and the winnings are lined up one by one. Patrick Vieira is as tough as usual, Robert Pirés excels, Fredrik Ljungberg plays well and Thierry Henry scores goals. Win after win, win after win, goal after goal. But then something happens. Robert Pirés breaks down. The midfielder who has dominated the entire league throughout the season. The waves are pouring in and everyone fears the worst. It will take a couple of days before the final message arrives, but it is expected. Pirés will be gone for the rest of the season.
It is here and there that Fredrik Ljungberg leaves his boys' corps behind and grows up to be a full-fledged man. During the rest of 2002, he developed into one of the world's best midfielders.

In the last two months, Freddie scores an incredible six decisive goals, gets his revenge against Michael Owen and Liverpool, decides the league and decides the final of the FA Cup.
It starts with him deciding the final against Chelsea in the FA Cup with an unlikely goal. Arsenal take their first title in four years and Ljungberg can not stop scoring, just as the commentator says the second after he splashed there 2-0 in the cross.

When the double is celebrated in north London, the only thing you see are tributes to Freddie. People have dyed their hair red, people sing his name and people wear t-shirts with messages like "We Love you Freddie".

Next season, Manchester United will regain the league title, but Arsenal will at least win the FA Cup for the second year in a row.

The Invincibles forms

The following season - 2003/2004 - Arsenal go through the league undefeated, become The Invincibles and Fredrik Ljungberg is given the starting eleven throughout the season. He writes himself into the history books forever and neither he nor the fans can get enough. This is too good to be true.

Unfortunately, it is when everything is at its best that it slowly but surely begins to go. The injuries refuse to end and soon he spends more time in the hospital than out on the field. Despite this, he continues to perform once he is healthy and is, among other things. with and leads Arsenal to the Champions League final 2006 where the success story unfortunately ends.

Fredrik is getting old, injured and the shape curves are changing more than ever before. He is still Freddie with the whole of north London, but around the corner new, young and fresh talents are ready to take over. In 2007, he makes perhaps the most difficult decision of his life when he and Wenger agree that he has done his part at Arsenal. The 29-year-old Swede is moving east, more specifically to West Ham.

The decline

It will only be one season at West Ham before he embarks on a new adventure in the USA and MLS. He still perfoms well when his body is was working, but the injuried was getting in his way.

Before the playing career ended did he also play for Chicage Fire, Celtic, Shimizu S-Pulse and Mumbai City, before retiring his shoes.