Written By Björn Olsson
Jesper Blomqvist was born February 5 1974 in Umeå Sweden.
He played icehockey and football in his early years but later quit hockey
in favour for football. The first club for Jesper was Tavelsjö and he was later
transferred to Umeå FC (now in division 1 Sweden). In Umeå FC he played
well and was discovered by the biggest football club in Sweden, IFK Göteborg
At the age of 20 Jesper played well and earned a place in the starting lineup.
Jesper did in fact play so well he was called up to the Swedish nationalteam
to go to World Cup 1994 were Jesper played two games as Sweden finished
third. Later that year IFK Göteborg played Manchester United in the Champions
League. With Jesper at the left wing IFK Göteborg won the game 3-1, Jesper
scored one goal, assisted one and earned a penalty. The game was a tremendous
success for Blomqvist as he really humiliated David May of Manchester United.
After that game Alex Ferguson had his eyes on Blomqvist. Jesper played the
two following seasons in IFK and he scored the goal of the season in 1995 against
Helsingborg where he totally fooled goalkeeper Sven Andersson. In 1996 Jesper
turned down an offer from Manchester United in favour of italian side AC Milan.
The debut game for AC Milan was a fantastic game by Blomqvist where he played
with no respect of the opponents. But unfortunately Jesper didn't get to play so
much and when AC Milan changed coach Jesper was transferred to AC Parma where
he played well and earned his place in the starting lineup. But most important of all
he enjoyed it at Parma the old club of fellow swede Tomas Brolin.
But then Parma changed coach and Jesper was told that he was free to go and as
Alex Ferguson had proclaimed.
"Looking back I should have tried harder to bring cover for Ryan Giggs on the
left side. I did try to buy Blomqvist from AC Milan but they wouldn't sell him.
They eventually let him go and perhaps I should have pushed them harder."
The choice seemed obvious for Jesper and when the offer came from United he
wasn't late to accept. Ferguson was happy, Blomqvist was happy and Sweden was happy.
Copyright Björn Olsson 1998
[olsson@winningteam.com]