Malmö FF

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Malmö FF

Full name	Malmö Fotbollförening
Nickname(s)	Di blåe (The Blues) Himmelsblått (Sky Blue)
Founded	1910
Ground	Swedbank Stadion, Malmö (Capacity: 24,000 (21,000 seated))
Chairman	Bengt Madsen
Manager	Roland Nilsson
League	Allsvenskan
2009	Allsvenskan, 7th
Home colours Away colours
Current season

Malmö FF is a Swedish professional football club located in Malmö. The club, formed on 24 February 1910, has been awarded 15 national championship titles (despite winning the Swedish football league 18 times) and 14 national cup titles, making them one of the most successful clubs in Sweden.^[1] Malmö FF was the runner-up in the 1979 European Champions Cup final, which they lost 1-0 to Nottingham Forest, the club was the first and as of 2010 still the only Swedish football club to have reached the final of the competition. For this, MFF were awarded the Svenska Dagbladet Gold Medal, as of 2010 the only club to have been so.^[2]

Malmö FF are currently playing in the highest Swedish league, Allsvenskan, where they have played the majority of the seasons during their existence. The club was most successful during the 1970's when they won five Swedish championships and four Swedish cup titels. The club first won Allsvenskan in 1944 and took their latest title in 2004.^[3]

Contents 1 History 2 Colours and crest 3 Supporters 4 Rivals 5 Stadiums 6 In popular culture 7 Current squad 7.1 Out on loan 8 Club hierarchy 9 Technical staff 10 Season results 11 Noted players 12 Noted managers 13 Club records 14 Achievements 15 Footnotes 16 References 17 External links

[edit] History

Malmö FF, is a Swedish sports club located in Malmö. Established on 24 February 1910, it is one of the dominating football clubs in Sweden since modern time. As of the 2009 season the club ranks second in overall Allsvenskan table maratontabellen.^[4]

The darkest spot in the history of Malmö FF was its relegation from Allsvenskan in 1999, for the second time. However, the following year, 2000, Malmö FF regained their place in Allsvenskan - during this season, Zlatan Ibrahimović rose to fame and became an important player in their campaign to return to the top league. Ibrahimović was later sold to Ajax in 2001, before playing for Juventus, Internazionale, and eventually FC Barcelona in 2009.

The first degradation was decided by the Swedish Football Association since Malmö FF's arch rivals IFK Malmö had reported the club for paying their players (this was against rules at the time). A lot of Malmö FF fans, specially among the older ones, still think of IFK Malmö's way of acting as an act of treason. At the end of the 2008 season, Malmö FF signed a co-operation deal with their former rivals, including two former Malmö FF players joining IFK Malmö as assistant and head coach. IFK Malmö later decided to stop their co-operation with Malmö FF in July 2009.^[5]

Malmö had a successful season in 2004 when they won the Swedish championship for the 15th time by winning Allsvenskan. It played 26 games that season, won 15, drew seven, and lost four. Total points adding up to 52, which was two points ahead of the runner-up.^[6]

Malmö FF have in many ways reflected the multi-cultural nature of Malmö. In 1990, defender Jean-Paul Vondenburg became the first black player playing for the Swedish national football team, playing against the United Arab Emirates. In 1998, midfielder/striker Yksel Osmanovski became the first Muslim player for Sweden, when Sweden lost 1-0 to USA.

[edit] Colours and crest

1920-Present

1910-1920

1910

The club is often known by the nicknames Di blåe (The Blue Ones) and Himmelsblått (Sky Blue). The reason for these nicknames are the club colours of light blue and white. The players wear sky blue shirts, white shorts, and sky blue socks. The away colors are red and white striped shirts, black shorts, and black socks.^[7]

The club colours has not always been sky blue. The predecessor club BK Idrott wore blue and white striped shirts and white shorts, this kit was used for the first six months of 1910 after Malmö FF had been founded. This was later changed to red and white striped shirts and black shorts to symbolize that Malmö FF was a new club, a very similar kit is now used as the away kit for historic reasons. The present day sky blue kit was introduced in 1920.^[8]

The crest of Malmö FF is made up of a shield with two vertical sky blue fields one the sides and one vertical white field in the middle. Underneath the shield is "Malmö FF" spelled out in sky blue letters with a sky blue star underlining the text. In the top area of the shield is a white horizontal field over the three vertical fields. The abbreviation of the club name "MFF" is spelled out with sky blue letters in this field. On top of the shield is five tower like extensions of the white field.^[9] The crest made its debut on the shirt in the 1940's.^[10]

In modern times a golden star has been added over the shield, this is a feature only used on the crests on player shirts. In the original logo the full club name and sky blue star beneath the shield was not featured. For the 100th anniversary of the club in 2010 the years 1910 and 2010 will be featured on each side of the shield on a sky blue ribbon behind the shield.

[edit] Supporters

Malmö FF has several fan clubs, among which the official fan club is MFF Support. It was founded in 1992. MFF Support describes itself as “an idealistic and non-political association working against violence and racism”.^[11] The current Chairman of MFF Support is Ola Solér.

Apart from MFF Support there is also several small fan groups and formations. The most prominent of these are Supras Malmö which was founded in 2003 by a group of devoted fans, creating a positive atmosphere and encouraging football culture are the main goals of the group. Another example of a group with similar goals is Rex Scania. MFF Tifosi 96 is a network of supporters creating tifos for special occasions and important games.

The attendance average for the 2009 season was 14.815, the second best attendance in Allsvenskan 2009 after Swedish champions AIK.^[12]

[edit] Rivals

The main rivals of the club are Helsingborgs IF, IFK Göteborg and IFK Malmö. The rivalry between Malmö FF and Helisngborgs IF has existed since Malmö FF were promoted up to Allsvenskan in the 1930's, the rivalry is of geographical nature since both teams are from Scania in southern Sweden. The rivalry with IFK Göteborg is of title reasons, the two clubs are the most successful clubs in Swedish football history and the only ones to have appeared in European cup finals, IFK Göteborg in the UEFA Cup in 1982 and 1987 and Malmö FF in the European Cup in 1979.

The rivalry with IFK Malmö is based on geographical reasons since the two clubs comes from the same city and used to play at the same stadium back in the early 20th century. There is also further reasons for the rivalry, as in 1933 board members of IFK Malmö revealed to the Swedish Football Association that Malmö FF paid their players, something which at this time was against the rules.^[13][14] Due to this, Malmö FF was relegated but did make it back to Allsvenskan as soon as in 1936. However, Malmö FF still consider the act from IFK Malmö as an act of betrayal. IFK Malmö does not play in Allsvenskan any longer, the last time being in 1962, thus matches between the two sides are rare.

Minor rivalry because of geographical status exists with Trelleborgs FF and Landskrona BoIS since they come from Scania as well as Malmö FF, however rivalry with these clubs are far from the level of rivalry with Helsingborg, IFK Göteborg and IFK Malmö.

[edit] Stadiums

Malmö FF's first stadium was Malmö IP, which was shared with arch-rivals IFK Malmö. The team played here from the founding of the club in 1910 to 1958. The stadium still exist today and is the stadium of ladies team LdB FC Malmö, formally being the ladies section of Malmö FF. Present day capacity is 7.600 but attendance was usually much more at the time when Malmö FF played at the stadium. For the last season in 1957 the attendance avarage was 15.500.^[15] The stadium is still an essential part of the clubs history as it was here that the club was founded, played its first 47 seasons and won five Swedish championships.

A new stadium in Malmö had to be constructed after Sweden was awarded the 1958 FIFA World Cup - this saw the birth of Malmö Stadion. Malmö FF played their first season at the stadium in 1958. The first time the club won the Swedish championship at the stadium was in 1965.^[16] An upper tier was added to the stadium in the 80's, and was completed in 1992.^[17] The club enjoyed its most successful era in its history at the stadium having won ten out of fifteen Swedish championships at the stadium.

Following the 2004 victory in Allsvenskan, voices where raised for the construction of a new stadium in Malmö. In July 2005, Malmö FF announced that a new stadium was to be constructed - Swedbank Stadion, a 18,000 seatings and 6,000 standings stadium. Construction started in 2007 and was finished in 2009. The stadium is located next to Malmö Stadion. Although there was still small-scale construction going on around the stadium at the time, the stadium was inaugurated on 13 April 2009 with the first home game of the 2009 season against Örgryte IS; Malmö FF's Labinot Harbuzi scored the inaugural goal in the 61st minute.^[18]

[edit] In popular culture

Malmö FF has been the subject and featured in several films.

The most noteworthy examples are Swedish football documentaries "Blådårar 1" and "Blådårar 2" which is portrayals of the club from both supporter and player perspective during the 1997 and 2000 season. Blådårar 1 is set in 1997 when the club finnished third in Allsvenskan, the focus of the film is on devoted fan Lasse, player Anders Andersson, former chairman Hans Cavalli-Björkman and many others.^[19] Blådårar 2 is set in 2000, the year after the club had been relegated to Superettan and follows the team as they fight to make Malmö FF a club in Allsvenskan again.^[20] The film continues to follow fan Lasse of the first film but a major part of the film is the focus on Zlatan Ibrahimović, his progress and how he was eventually sold to AFC Ajax during the 2001 season. The two films have become known as classic portrayals of the club.

Malmö FF has been featured in the documentary series "Mitt Hjärtas Malmö", a series of documentaries covering the history of Malmö, clips including match footage from the 1940's (Volume 7) and match footage from the 1979 European Cup Final in Munich through a fan perspective (Volume 8).^[21] Volume 9 is entirely about the club because of the 100th anniversary in 2010.^[22]

Other examples of films featuring the club is the Swedish 2005 drama movie "Om Sara", actor Alexander Skarsgård plays the football star Kalle Öberg, who plays for MFF.^[23] Also, a recurring sketch in the second season of Hipphipp! involves a group of Malmö FF fans singing and chanting while performing every-day tasks, such as shopping or operating an ATM.

[edit] Current squad

As of 2010-01-01^[24]

No. Position Player 2 DF Ulrich Vinzents 3 MF Robert Åhman-Persson 6 DF Markus Halsti 7 FW Daniel Larsson 8 MF Daniel Andersson (captain) 9 FW Wílton Figueiredo 10 MF Rick Kruys 11 MF Jeffrey Aubynn 14 MF Guillermo Molins 15 FW Pontus Jansson 16 MF Miljan Mutavdžić 17 MF Ivo Pękalski 18 FW Edward Ofere

No. Position Player 19 DF Niklas Hansson 20 DF Ricardinho 21 MF Jimmy Durmaz 22 DF Filip Stenström 23 MF Robin Nilsson 24 FW Agon Mehmeti 25 GK Dušan Melichárek 26 MF Jiloan Hamad 27 GK Johan Dahlin 28 FW Alexander Nilsson 29 DF Jasmin Sudic 30 GK Dejan Garaca 36 MF Muamet Asanovski

[edit] Out on loan

No. Position Player DF Anes Mravac (on loan at Lilla Torg FF)

For recent transfers, see List of Swedish football transfers winter 2009–10.

[edit] Club hierarchy

Name Role Bengt Madsen Chairman Pelle Svensson Managing Director Håkan Jeppsson Vice Chairman Bo Malmquist Secretary TBD Sport Director

[edit] Technical staff

Name Role Roland Nilsson Manager Leif Engqvist Assistant Manager / U-21 Team Manager Staffan Tapper First Team Coach / Head of Youth Academy Jonnie Fedel Goalkeeping Coach John Phillips Fitness Coach Dr. Pär Herbertsson Club Doctor Rickard Dahan Physiotherapist Greger Andrijevski Masseur Kenneth Folkesson Kit Man

[edit] Season results

This is a list of recent season results, for a complete list of season results use the link above

Season		Pos.	Pl.	W	D	L	GS	GA	P	Notes
2000	SE	2	30	20	3	7	48	32	60	promoted
2001	AS	9	26	9	5	12	39	46	32
2002	AS	2	26	14	4	8	52	32	46
2003	AS	3	26	14	6	6	50	23	48
2004	AS	1	26	15	7	4	44	21	52
2005	AS	5	26	12	5	9	38	27	41
2006	AS	7	26	10	8	8	43	39	38
2007	AS	9	26	9	7	10	29	28	34
2008	AS	6	30	12	8	10	51	46	44
2009	AS	7	30	11	10	9	40	25	43

[edit] Noted players

List Criteria:

• player has made more than 500 appearances for the club, or
• player has had a very close connection to the club, or
• player has won Guldbollen, or
• player has achieved great international fame

Year after player name in parentheses is the year the player started playing for Malmö FF.

1930's

• Erik Nilsson (1934) - 600 Games, 4 Goals

1940's

• Egon Jönsson (1943) - 405 Games, ? Goals

1950's

• Prawitz Öberg (1952) - 515 Games, 103 Goals
• Ingvar Svahn (1957) - 255 Games, 67 Goals

1960's

• Bo Larsson (1962) - 546 Games, 289 Goals
• Krister Kristensson (1963) - 625 Games, 16 Goals
• Roy Andersson (1968) - 623 Games, 49 Goals
• Roland Andersson (1968) - 564 Games, 13 Goals

1970's

• Jan Möller (1971) - 591 Games, 1 Goal
• Magnus Andersson (1977) - 565 Games, 28 Goals
• Robert Prytz (1977) - 132 Games, 36 Goals
• Torbjörn Persson (1979) - 574 Games, 39 Goals

1980's

• Jonnie Fedel (1984) - 582 Games, 2 Goals
• Jonas Thern (1985) - 76 Games, 11 Goals
• Martin Dahlin (1987) - 87 Games, 45 Goals
• Stefan Schwarz (1987) - 32 Games, 0 Goals
• Patrik Andersson (1989) - 100 Games, 12 Goals

1990's

• Daniel Andersson (1995) - 218 Games, 26 Goals
• Hasse Mattisson (1996) - 200 Games, 21 Goals
• Zlatan Ibrahimović (1999) - 40 Games, 16 Goal

[edit] Noted managers

This is a list of managers who has won one or more titles at the club

• Sven Nilsson (1944, 1945-1947 and 1950) - Allsvenskan 1944 and 1950, Svenska Cupen 1944, 1946 and 1947
• Kálmán Konrád (1947-1950) - Allsvenskan 1949
• Bert Turner (1951-1955) - Allsvenskan 1951 and 1953, Svenska Cupen 1951 and 1953
• Antonio Durán (1964-1971) - Allsvenskan 1965, 1967, 1970 and 1971, Svenska Cupen 1967
• Karl-Erik Hult (1972–1973) - Svenska Cupen 1973
• Bob Houghton (1974-1980 and 1990 - 1992) - Allsvenskan 1974, 1975 and 1977, Svenska Cupen 1974, 1975, 1978 and 1980
• Tord Grip (1983-1984) - Svenska Cupen 1984
• Roy Hodgson (1985–1989) - Allsvenskan 1986 and 1988, Svenska Cupen 1986 and 1989
• Tom Prahl (2002-2005) - Allsvenskan 2004

[edit] Club records

• Record League victory: 12–0 v Halmstad BK, Allsvenskan, 3 June 1943 / v Jönköpings Södra IF, Allsvenskan, 26 May 1949^[25]
• Record League defeat: 1–7 v IF Elfsborg, Allsvenskan, 10 April 1926
• Highest attendance (at Malmö Stadion): 29,328 v Helsingborgs IF, 24 September 1967
• Highest attendance (at Swedbank Stadion): 23,347 v Örgryte IS, 13 April 2009
• Highest attendance (at Malmö IP): 22,436 v Helsingborgs IF, 1 June 1956
• Highest attendance average: 20,061; 2004 Season
• Most appearances, total: 625 — Krister Kristensson (1963-78)
• Most appearances, Allsvenskan: 348 — Krister Kristensson (1963-78)
• Most goals scored, total: 289 — Bo Larsson (1962-66, 1969-79)
• Most goals scored, Allsvenskan: 119 — Bo Larsson (1962-66, 1969-79)
• Most goals scored in a season: 28 — Bo Larsson, 1965

[edit] Achievements

• Swedish Champions:
  • Winners (15): 1943–44, 1948–49, 1949–50, 1950–51, 1952–53, 1965, 1967, 1970, 1971, 1974, 1975, 1977, 1986, 1988, 2004^[26]
• Allsvenskan:
  • Winners (18): 1943–44, 1948–49, 1949–50, 1950–51, 1952–53, 1965, 1967, 1970, 1971, 1974, 1975, 1977, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 2004
  • Runners-up (14): 1945–1946, 1947–48, 1951–52, 1955–56, 1956–57, 1964, 1968, 1969, 1976, 1978, 1980, 1983, 1996, 2002
• Allsvenskan play-off:
  • Winners (2): 1986, 1988
  • Runners-up (2): 1987, 1989
• Svenska Cupen:
  • Winners (14): 1944, 1946, 1947, 1951, 1953, 1967, 1972–73, 1973–74, 1974–75, 1977–78, 1979–80, 1983–84, 1985–86, 1988–89
  • Runners-up (3): 1945, 1970–71, 1995–96
• European Champion Clubs' Cup:
  • Runners-up (1): 1978–79
• Intercontinental Cup
  • Runners-up (1): 1979

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] References

• Törner, Ole (2005). Malmö FF; En Supporters Handbok. Bokförlaget DN. ISBN 91-7588-683-9. 
• Smitt, Rikard (2009). Ända sen gamla dagar.... Project Management AB. ISBN 978-91-633-5767-1. 

[edit] External links

• Malmö FF - official site
• MFF Support - official supporter club site
• Himmelriket - supporter site

v • d • e Malmö FF The club · History · Supporters Managers · Players  · Seasons Malmö IP · Malmö Stadion · Swedbank Stadion

v • d • e Football in Sweden Swedish Football Association National teams Men's (U-21) · Women's, Youth League system Allsvenskan · Superettan · Division 1 (North · South) · Division 2 · Division 3 · Damallsvenskan Cup competitions Svenska Cupen · Supercupen List of champions · List of men's clubs · List of women's clubs · List of venues · List of competitions (defunct)

v • d • e Allsvenskan 2010 AIK · Brommapojkarna · Djurgården · Elfsborg · GAIS · Gefle · IFK Göteborg · Halmstad · Helsingborg · Häcken · Kalmar · Malmö · Mjällby · Trelleborg · Åtvidaberg · Örebro

Preceded by Björn Borg & Ingemar Stenmark

Svenska Dagbladet Gold Medal 1979

Succeeded by Thomas Wassberg (refused)