An injury may have deprived Arsenal’s Freddie Ljungberg of the World Cup he wanted, but it hans’t dampened his enthusiasm for the new football season. So how is the Swedish wunderkind settling into London life, with all its nocturnal temptations?
Three pre-teen boys in swimming trunks lurk at one end of Tooting Bec lido attempting to suss out if it really is Arsenal footballer Freddie Ljungberg getting changed in the cramped lifeguard”s office. The portly young whippernsappers eye up the three women (PR, photo consultant and journalist) standing nearby.
“Do you think they’re his bodyguard’s” one asks.
“I wouldn’t mind three women bodyguard’s,” the smallest one announces with some confidence.
A lean, good-looking international soccer star emerges form the cabin, checking out a look for his photoshoot. Warily, the boys approach him.
“Are you Freddie Ljungberg?”
“I think so.”
“Can we have your autograph?”
“Sure”
“If you are Freddie Ljungberg.”
Probably not the reception Arsenal’s Number Eight would get on the streets of Highburyn but in some ways a reflection of the situation the Swedish 25-year-old finds himself in. It’s hard to believe it was for years this September that Ljungberg made his début by scoring against arch-rivals Manchester United in his first five minutes on the pitch, but since then he’s enjoyed a far steadier rise to British fame.
He goes into the new football season, which starts this week, poised for greatness: the impressive form which saw the midfielder pick up the Barcleycard Player of the Year award in May was a major factor in Arsenal’s triumphant League and FA Cup Double-winning 2001-2002 season. Soon, even the old dears doing their weekly ten lenghts at London’s premier Edwardian lido will know who he is.
We first meet at a nearby café fo a chat. He’s flown straight in from Sweden by 10.30am is enjoying one of his first english breakfasts.
On training days Ljungberg eats very lightly.
However, he’ll be missing the first few weeks of the season due to a recent hip operation, so this is a rare chance for him to sample the full fry-up. Not too many of those before you get back on the field, mind.
“I will be 100 per cent fint when I’m back,” he reassures me, deciding that the remaining halfplate of roadkill bacon is more than he can handle.
Having not only beaten Manchester United to the Premiership title in May, but done it by beating Beckham, Keane et al at their own ground, Arsenal are winners again for the first time since the Double, just before Ljungberg joined. Ljungberg doesn’t take comfort in his enforced rest. “We need to defen the title, so it’s a bit annoying not to be going straight back”. I was an crutches for ten days at least now I can get around, even if it is a little sore.”
Having been a shpr talent at handball and ice hockey too, Fredrik Ljungberg decided to follow a footballing career at the age of 15 “because it was more fun” During the first year of his professional career he kept up his economics studies at college before the games’ demands and the disapproval of his manager became too great. He playde for his local team, Halmstads BK, for four years before his performance for Sweden against England so impressed Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger that he signed the player within a week of the game.
‘I came to Arsenal because it was a big club. I had won the League with my team at home an I wanted to do more here. The English game is a lot quicker and more physical and a lot of people said that a move from Italy or Spain would suit my game better, but I met the boss and I felt I schould give it a try. I think they were right in the beginning and I did get a lot of injuries. Also, the season in Sweden runs spring to autumn so I had come from one season right into another without any break. It was tough at first, but after the following summer break it improved, I started playing more anf more and got a lot of confidence from the boss. I was young when I got here and had a lot more to learn. I was very pleased that we won the Double this year; that’s what I came here for.
The season after we won the Double, we lost the league to Manchester United by just one point. The following year they ran away with it and that was annoying; we were a big team and used to winning, but we lost against the “smaller” teams. I think that was the difference last season: we won those games. Also, the new arrivals from the previous year had another12 months to get with the team. We fought for each other and that counts for more than individual performances in those tough away games.
Now we want to defent the Double, of course, but I think we can improve our games in the Champions” League too”.
In May, almost as soon as praise for the Swede’s season had calmed down, it was time for English fans to fear his excellent form as England were heading for a clash with his country in the group games of the 2002 World Cup. Ljungberg, like so many exciting rising stars, missed out on a truly fulfilling World Cup due to injury.
‘I have mixes feelings about Japan,” he reflects. “I only three training sessions during the whole time we were there. It was brilliant to go, but to be unable to train, to be injured, when they couldn’t really diagnose what was wrong was very frustating. But we played some pretty good football: the nigeria game, and the second half against England.” He smiles. “It was a real shame we lost to Senegal in the next round, but Swedish people were pretty happy we won the group. The group was so tought that they felt we were the underdogs. That suited us because we do better when we’re not the favourites”
Long national hero back home, Ljungberg doesn’t just garner comparisons to David Beckham on account of his chiselled looks. Not surprisingly, he shrugs it off. “We are different people. I suppose I should be proud because he’s a brilliant footballer. The character he showed after France 98’ was amazing,” he says, acknowledging the England captain’s darkest months after being sent off against Argentinia. With all the slavering tabloid support the England captain received for Japan 2002 it’s easy to forget that, once upon a time, one paper even ran a dartboard with his face on it. “I think if that had hapened to a swedish player the papers there would been have been a little more kind! But he dealt with it very well.”
Ljungberg is aware that, compared to other players, he has had a fairly easy ride with the British press so far. (He’s just been taken on by Beckham’s PR, which shoult boost his coverage.)
“Arsenal’s a big club and the pressure is on, but I’m a footballer, that’s my life. There will always be times when they think you are a god and times when you are the worst player in the world. The truth is somewhere in between and you just have to get on and play. But I haveto say, as a foreigner, I love the fact that the game is so big here. So the media is an understandable part of that.
“When I was at home yesterday, I was passing a newsagent and I saw from the papers that I am apparently really depressed at the moment,” he beams. “Apparentley the News of the World had reported it here first. I’d seen my physio beforehand and now I know why he asking me if I was okay!”
One plus from his operatian has been the chance to spend little more time at home with his family. And he still goes back for his haircuts, another of the press’s obsessions, which earned him the nickname Sid Vicious when he first arrived and a reputation as a bit of punk. (Born in 1977, he actually has little enthusiasm or nostalgia for sex pistols records). “It does surprise me. Over in Sweden, at my hairdressers, if they don’t colour your hair they feel they’ve only done 50 per cent of the job! For me it’s not a big deal, it’s what I’ve always done and I probably won’t stop until my hair falls out.”
Okay, so the punk myth is banished. But you were also branded a bit of “bad boy” when you joined Arsenal. Yet you’ve only had 5 yellow cards in four years, which isn’t too bad, especially for a Gunner.
“Well, you get older.”
You’re only 25!
“yeah, true. I now play more football and I wouldn’t say I take it more seriously, but I do have to be more professional.”
Things have certainly changed in the dressingsrooms of Highbury. Tony Adams’ rehabilitation is well documented, but nowadays the likes of Arsenal heartthrob Thierry Henry are more likely to gain notoriety for advertising French cars than for failling down nightclub stairs. One manager of a northern team once hinted tartly that a player who had chosen a London team over his own had done so because the nightclubs were better in London. So are the bright lights a temptation?
“I like London becouse you’re allowed to be who you are; it’s not a small village where everybody knows everything. We train in the morning and I have the afternoons and evenings free, so London is great because there’s so much to do. Of course there are a lot of clubs, but you need to be intelligent. Now we play Wednesdays and Saturdays almost al the time, and if you go out too much or too late, you see your football suffering.”At the same time it’s important to relax and sometimes go out a little bit later just to feel like a normal person. I like to socialise with my friends, I enjoy going to restaurants, cafés and the cinema. I don’t like to sit around at home, and that made it difficult when I first moved here because I didn’t know anyone. But now I have a social circle, and my family visits. My mother moves musicals and there are so many in London. I enjoy listening to music but I’m not into any band. I can’t take a note or play an instrument, tough’”
Have you sampled London’s live in musicscene?
“That’s the thing. It takes a whole evening and they’re usually pretty late. I forget to look at what’s coming up and it’s only when tells me who they’ve seen I’m like, “Oh shit, I would love to have seen that!”’
Do footballers have to be careful at gigs in case someone treads on their foot ore something?
“I don’t really think about that too mutch’, he laughs. “An accident could happen if you’re walking across the street. I need to try to have a normal life. Maybe I don’t go bungee jumping every day, but I do try to do what I want. Maybe if someone trod on my toe I’d have to lie the next day!”
Some clubs even ban golf during the season for fear of players picking up injuries.
“I’m too lazy to play golf – too mutch walking!
My hobby is clothes. A couple of my friends know about fashion and one of the things I do in afternoons is check out catwalks before stuff makes the shops. Some sportsmens have made their own designer labels, but...”
There will never be another time in my life when I’m eye to eye with footballer and we’re both thinking about Björn Borg’s pants. What, no Freddie Underwear?
“No no,” he smiles. “I don’t think so.”
