Torbjörn Anders Nilsson (born 9 July 1954) is a Swedish former football player and manager. A forward, he is considered one of the best Swedish footballers of all time. He is best remembered for his time with IFK Göteborg with which he won two Swedish championship titles, the 1981–82 UEFA Cup, and reached the semi-finals of the 1985–86 European Cup. He also represented PSV Eindhoven in the Netherlands and 1. FC Kaiserslautern in Germany during a career that spanned between 1971 and 1990. A full international between 1976 and 1985, he won 28 caps for the Sweden national team and scored nine goals. He represented his country at the 1978 FIFA World Cup and was the 1982 recipient of Guldbollen.
Playing career
Nilsson was born in Västerås on 9 July 1954, and raised in Hallstahammar. He and his family (father Göte, mother Daisy, the brothers Rolf and Bosse and sister Rose-Marie) moved to Partille, outside Gothenburg, before he started school, and he began his footballing career in Jonsereds IF at the age of seven or eight. Nilsson joined IFK Göteborg for the 1975 season, and helped the club climb back to the top tier of Swedish football, Allsvenskan, by winning Division 2 in 1976. He tried his luck abroad with PSV Eindhoven, but returned to IFK after only one season. He then helped the team to a treble in 1982, the Swedish championship (IFK won both Allsvenskan and the title-deciding play-off), Svenska Cupen, and the UEFA Cup. He was awarded Guldbollen, the Swedish footballer of the year award, for his heroics.
Nilsson moved to Kaiserslautern in Germany, where he played two seasons, and was about to move to Benfica when his former Göteborg manager Sven-Göran Eriksson left that club. Nilsson had led the club to another Swedish Championship, and nearly a European Cup final in 1986. IFK was eliminated by FC Barcelona after having won the home leg 3–0. They lost the away match by the same score. Nilsson still regrets not taking a penalty in the ensuing penalty shootout, He declined to play for the national team for four years in the early 1980s when he was at his prime, the most important reason for this was that Nilsson not felt comfortable in the national team and the coach Lars Arnesson, who mixtured a lot with different formations, which did not suit the playing style that Nilsson liked.
Coaching career
After ending his professional playing career, Torbjörn Nilsson acted as playing manager for his youth club Jonsereds IF,
|Bundesliga
|33||9||0||0||8||4||colspan="2"|–||41||13
|-
|1983–84
!National team
!Year
!Apps
!Goals
|-
| rowspan="10" |Sweden
|1976
|4
|1
|-
|1977
|2
|0
|-
|1978
|5
|1
|-
|1979
|2
|4
|-
|1980
|4
|0
|-
|1981
|4
|2
|-
|1982
|0
|0
|-
|1983
|0
|0
|-
|1984
|1
|1
|-
|1985
|6
|0
|-
! colspan="2" |Total
!28
!9
|}
: Scores and results list Sweden's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Nilsson goal.
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+List of international goals scored by Torbjörn Nilsson
! scope="col" |No.
! scope="col" |Date
! scope="col" |Venue
! scope="col" |Opponent
! scope="col" |Score
! scope="col" |Result
! scope="col" |Competition
! class="unsortable" scope="col" |
|-
| align="center" |1
|11 August 1976
|Malmö Stadium, Malmö, Sweden
|
| align="center" |5–0
| align="center" |6–0
|1972–77 Nordic Football Championship
|
|-
| align="center" |2
|28 June 1978
|Ryavallen, Örebro, Sweden
|
| align="center" |1–0
| align="center"|2–1
|1978–80 Nordic Football Championship
|
|-
| align="center" |3
|14 November 1979
|Merdeka Stadium, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
|
| align="center" |1–0
| align="center"|3–1
|Friendly
|
|-
| align="center" |4
| rowspan="3" |17 November 1979
| rowspan="3" |National Stadium, Singapore
| rowspan="3" |
| align="center" |1–0
| rowspan="3" align="center" |5–0
| rowspan="3" |Friendly
| rowspan="3" |
|-
| align="center" |5
| align="center" |4–0
|-
| align="center" |6
| align="center" |5–0
|-
| align="center" |7
|28 February 1981
|Lahtis Storhall, Lahti, Finland
|
| align="center" |1–2
| align="center"|4–2
|Friendly
|
|-
| align="center" |8
|1 March 1981
|Lahtis Storhall, Lahti, Finland
|
| align="center" |1–2
| align="center"|1–2
|Friendly
|
|-
| align="center" |9
|14 November 1984
|Alvalade Stadium, Lisbon, Portugal
|
| align="center" |3–1
| align="center" |3–1
|1986 FIFA World Cup qualifier
|
|}
Honours
;IFK Göteborg
- UEFA Cup: 1981–82
- Swedish Champion: 1982, 1984
- Svenska Cupen: 1978–1979, 1981–82
Individual
- Guldbollen: 1982
- Allsvenskan top scorer: 1981
- European Cup top scorer: 1984–85 (7 goals, shared with Michel Platini), 1985–86 (7 goals)
- UEFA Cup top scorer: 1981–82 (9 goals)
- Årets ärkeängel: 1979