5 minutes with...

Tommy Svensson

Tommy Svensson is a Swedish football player who was one of the driving forces in the Standard midfield of in the early 1970s. He was a gifted football player who was active before his transfer to Standard at the Swedish club Östers IF, with whom he won the Swedish Golden Shoe. Later, as coach of that same Östers, he won the title three times. During his active player career, he was also international and played, among others, the 1970 World Cup. In the 1990s, he became Sweden’s national coach and conducted them to third place at the 1994 World Cup in America.

What is your best souvenir of your time at Standard?

I played for Standard 1971-1973 and I still remember the warm welcome from players and supporters. I felt at home at once and had a wonderful time in Liège. Unfortunately my mother died in a car accident in the beginning of 1973 and I had to go back to Sweden that summer to support my father – otherwise I would have loved to stay much longer !

Who was your strongest teammate whilst playing for Standard, and why? 

I had many strong teammates and most of them were playing in their national teams ! The one that impressed me most was our goalkeeper Christian Piot – he was a world class keeper and a wonderful personality and a very good friend!

Do you have any games you remember vividly while playing in Liège?

I remember many games, the quarter final against Inter in Milan (08.03.1972, 1:0 defeat in the dying minutes), a home win 4-0 against Anderlecht with 36000 spectators (10.10.1971 with a brace from Roger Henrotay, and goals via Cvetler and Takac), 2 Cup Finals at the Heysel stadium and a friendly game against Santos (06.03.1973) where we played against the wonder kid Pele, and of course many other games.

We often talk about the magic of Sclessin. You were part of one of the generations building that reputation. What does this magic mean to you?

Playing at Sclessin was special, in those days it was the old stadium (rather dirty) and the fans were enthusiastic and I think our opponents were afraid of meeting us there. We almost felt unbeatable!

What would be your favorite line up of all the players you played with in your career?

I don´t think the Standard fans know so much about Swedish players so I picked a line up from my time in Liège:

Christian Piot – Jacky Beurlet, Leon Jeck, Nico Dewalque, Jean Thissen – Tommy Svensson, Wilfried Van Moer, Louis Pilot – Leon Semmeling, Roger Henrotay,  Sylvestre Takac. But this is such a difficult exercise as we also had Leon Dolmans, Christian Labarbe, Ludo Cvetler and during my last months a very young Eric Gerets!

 

Tack Tommy!