Will Freddie Ljungberg be a Lubo or Gravesen?

What will Celtic get from new signing Freddie Ljungberg?

Will it be a glorious Lubo-like spell watching a magician at work in the type of environment that his talent was made for, or will it be the bull-in-a-china-shop swansong that was Thomas Gravesen’s Celtic career.

There are three words that haunt and scar Ljungberg’s reputation and they are West, Ham and United.

The Swede’s move across London was an expensive disaster for the club but over the last ten years West Ham have been pouring money down the drain at an incredible rate with a succession of players being written off despite massive transfer fees and big money contracts.

With the ‘greedy b*&*&d’ tag and injury prone stigma attached to him the Swede headed off to the MLS and rediscovered the enthusiasm for the game that drained away at West Ham.

The MLS allowed him to fully recover from a hip injury in a less demanding environment than West Ham’s annual battle with relegation and in an interview for the Arsenal website he comes over as a player with something to prove as well as being something of a free spirit.

Interviews with official club productions can often seem boring and predictable but in this case Ljungberg opens up with a lot of truths about his move to America and clearly at the time had an open mind about returning to Europe with a point to prove.

USA.Arsenal.com: David Beckham came to America with great fanfare a few years ago and joined the L.A. Galaxy. Clearly, it did not turn out as well as both parties would have hoped.  Did this give you any cause for concern before you signed with Seattle?

Freddie Ljungberg: “A little bit. I was always compared to Beckham a bit my whole career, but we’re two totally different people. Of course, I get the question all the time, ‘are you just going to do like Beckham and take the money’. I don’t mean that in a bad way to Beckham, but that’s what fans say, ‘take the money and go back to Europe’ kind of thing.

“And that’s why the league, and Seattle, wanted me to sign a much longer contract. I signed for two years, because I felt that’s something… I know I want to play here for two years and I’ll keep my word to that. But his decisions are his decisions, and my decisions are my decision and we’re two different people.”

USA.Arsenal.com: How did the move to Seattle come about?

Freddie Ljungberg: “That’s quite a long story. I was a free transfer for the first time in my life last summer, which is amazing, you can choose where you want to play! That hadn’t happened before. Because I’m free, there were options everywhere to go and play, but I said to my agent, I wanted just to take it easy and sit down and take a break and see what I want to do, where I want to play, and stuff.

“You know agents… they’re always on you, they always call you at home ‘this club, this club, this club’… whatever, but I was like, I didn’t want to know. I just wanted to take it easy. In the end my decision was, I wanted to do something totally different. A bit of a… an adventure. Something of a challenge, and help the sport here in America. That’s how it really came about, which might surprise a lot of people that I came here this early. Everybody said ‘you should wait another two years and play a bit more in Europe and then go.’ But that’s how it came about.

USA.Arsenal.com: You scored your first MLS goal in your first start for Seattle. How important was it to get that first goal out of the way early and to do it with such flair?

Freddie Ljungberg: “It’s always nice to get the first goal out of the way because of the attention of when the first goal is going to be there and to do it straightaway, that’s a nice feeling. The reception I got and the comments after the game from the people were amazing. Of course that’s nice, but it’s all, how do you say, just rolling on from there and I’m very happy.

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USA.Arsenal.com: Each league in Europe tends to be associated with a certain style, England is known as fast and physical whereas Spain and Italy are usually described as more technical and tactical. So far, how would you compare the style of play in the MLS to Europe?

Freddie Ljungberg: “I think it’s quite high-tempo in the games. The players I think, in training, they really want to get better and they work very,very hard. SO there’s a lot of running and tempo, and it’s quite a physical league. I think maybe some teams play the ball a bit longer than, like at Arsenal for example.

“They play a bit more long balls than Arsenal. So when we try to keep the ball with one-two touches on the floor, the other teams seem a bit surprised and can’t they really defend against it. So I think if we can get that kind of game plan, with one-two touches on the floor, we can do a lot of damage in the league. That’s how I see it. It feels like they are not really used to seeing a quick passing game on the floor.

USA.Arsenal.com: What league in Europe would you say the MLS most compares to?

Freddie Ljungberg: “There’s no league I can say that it compares to it in that way. The only thing I’ve said, is that level-wise, I think they would play evenly against teams in the Dutch league. Even if they are different kinds of football, but I think that would be about right in even games. But American league is one league and England, Spain, Italy are different leagues.

USA.Arsenal.com: You mentioned that you signed a two-year deal with Seattle. Do plan on continuing to play when your contract is up?

Freddie Ljungberg: “That was why I did it. I wanted to make a decision if I want to play, if I want to stay in America, or I want to go back to Europe to play, or what I want to do. But the way it feels now, especially like I said with my hip, and I’ve got all the injuries behind me, it feels great. I can run again, so probably I’ll play more, but I don’t know yet. The way it feels now, I feel young again, so it’s nice.

USA.Arsenal.com: And what does the future hold for you after football?

Freddie Ljungberg: “If I knew! I don’t know. There’s different things I want to do in life, and I always said it depends if you have a family and kids and stuff, I think you have to take that into consideration for future plans and stuff. But I always loved fashion and architecture and that’s something that interests me.

“I’ve been asked quite a lot lately, or ‘when you get older’,  about the managing aspect of things because I like the tactical, and I have some experience in the game… that’s something as well that I’m thinking about. But I think it will all be decided if I have a family and kids.”

 

Arsenal.com interview in full

 

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Freddie Ljungberg Gallery

 

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