Andersson Patrik
Patrik “Bjärred” Jonas Andersson is a Swedish former footballer. Both his father, Roy Andersson, as well as his younger brother, Daniel Andersson, have also played professional football. Andersson began his career in the local club, Bjärreds IF, from which he also got his nickname, he moved on to Malmö FF, a team playing in the top national league, before playing for Blackburn Rovers, Borussia Mönchengladbach, Bayern Munich and Barcelona before his return to Malmö FF.
Things to Know:
Sweden qualified impressively for this tournament, winning all games except the away game against England (0–0) and conceding only one goal. The finals however, were a great disappointment. Sweden lost their opening game against the host Belgium 1–2. Johan Mjällby scored the goal for Sweden in the 53rd minute after an error by Belgian goalkeeper Filip De Wilde, while Belgium won via goals from Bart Goor in the 43rd minute and Émile Mpenza in the 46th. Then Sweden played 0–0 against Turkey and lost 2–1 to Italy. The goal was scored by Henrik Larsson while Italy won via goals from Luigi Di Biagio and Alessandro Del Piero. Sweden finished the group last behind Belgium with only 1 point. Italy finished first and Turkey second.
Did you Know?
Andersson earned a total of 96 caps for the Swedish national team, scoring four goals. He won a bronze medal in the 1994 FIFA World Cup. Andersson also played in the team which reached the semi-finals in the 1992 European Championship. He was also part of the Swedish national squad that took part in the Euro 2000, 2002 FIFA World Cup and was a member of the Swedish squad that competed at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. In Euro 2000, he received a red card for a hard foul on Belgium’s Bart Goor.
Things to Know:
This model of shirt was never used by the team during the Fifa World Cup 2002 nor during the following reasons due an issue occurred some days before the World Cup 2002 game against England. Fifa previously authorized this style/color of shirt to Adidas. So the shirt went to the regular production and it was also sold to the stores. Some days before the game against England (England has white shirt) Fifa realized that Sweden didn’t have any dark shirts for World Cup games against teams with light shirts as the first Sweden shirt was yellow. So they made Sweden changing the “away”white kit with a dark shirt. Adidas quickly made a blue away shirt for the World Cup, that according with the Sweden Team’s kit man of the time were delivered by Adidas only few hours before the game against England. Adidas decided to destroy the whole kit of white shirts and to reimburse all of the fans who previously bought the white ones on stores. So only few white shirts survived, so this shirt is definitely one of the rarest World Cup shirts ever.