dryada (dryada) wrote,
dryada
dryada

Here's another part of my Sweden NT presentation! Next up hopefully will be Zlatan's striker partner Johan Elmander.



Ten Things About Freddie Ljungberg.

1. So, Karl Fredrik Ljungberg. Well, he wears pretty obscene clothes. Let me present you with a few examples.

Here's Freddie. All innocent saphire blue eyes:

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Inconspicious pair of jeans and a military jacket.

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And he turns.

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(Yes, that would be "Vestal Masturbation" it says on the back.)

Want another example? Here we have him again, strolling down the street:

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And here's a close-up of his T-shirt.

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(Yes, those would be two girls with a strap-on.)

2. He's got a kid brother named Filip, who used to live with him while studying in London ("he’s got an apartment of his own but he tends to use mine, especially when I’m not around..."). Filip was a recurring feature in the Sky documentary about Freddie (that used to be up on Youtube but sadly is no more) from 2003, and came across as the, well, teenager he was. Below is a couple of the highlights:

* Dialogue in Freddie's car (Freddie is driving the female reporter and the camera man into the city for some shopping):
Freddie: "You were on the pitch last game, weren't you?"
Filip: "Yeah".
Freddie: "I heard that today. That the steward had been shouting 'Who the fuck is that, out walking on the pitch?'"
Filip: (to the camera man)"I remember when they won the Swedish Championship - after the game, we were going to run out on the pitch. And who ran? I did - and nobody else! And the steward was like - *illustrates being brought down with a karate move* And then he took out, like - uh, 'handklovar?'"
Freddie: "Handcuffs."
Filip: "Handcuffs! And I was like, YEAH! Thanks!"
Freddie: *laughs*

* The Sky team arrives to Freddie's close friend Giovanni Bolandrini's shop Vertice on South Molton Street. Freddie sips some green tea and models the clothes Giovanni's picked for him (this seems to be standard procedure). He chooses a jacket with bullets sewn on to it, and Giovanni jokes that it's going to get him stopped in security. "Filip get searched every time he goes back to Sweden," Freddie tells him. "One time they even asked me to take off my trousers!" Filip eagerly confirms. "I was like 'Come ON', they were like, 'yeah. Take them off'. But they didn't do anything..."

* Later on in the documentary Freddie is having dinner at the home of Giovanni and his wife Tina Bolandrini. When he arrives with the Sky team Filip is already there, raiding the fridge. While the four of them has a glass of wine, Giovanni starts lamenting his lack of hair. "Everyone's got more hair than me. Even your brother has got more hair than me", he tells Filip (Freddie, in his corner, quietly pulls the baseball cap further down). He then starts talking about how in the future there will be pills that you eat to get hair. Instantly, Freddie sits up and goes: "Yeah, but with those pills, are you going to get more hair on your entire body? Or just on your head?", and Filip dramatically gestures towards his crotch, making a sound like a bomb going off.

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3. He seems like a pretty normal, pretty smart guy. You get the feeling you'd actually be able to hang out with him, because he seems to share point of reference with the world outside of football. Like in this interview where he's asked about the consequences of his Calvin Klein stint:

Freddie: "People are always asking me to sign their underwear for them."
Reporter: "Men too?"
F: "Of course - a lot of men wear the things!"
R: "Are they straight or gay?"
F: "Both, I’m sure. I usually don’t ask someone who requests an autograph, 'Do you like boys or girls?'"
R: "Do guys ever say, 'Could you sign this underwear for my girlfriend?'"
F: "Sure."
R: "Isn’t that a tip-off?"
F: "Yeah. Especially when the shorts they’re asking me to sign are briefs."

He also studied economy and information technology at the university before getting his contract with Arsenal, so there's that.

4. Among Freddie's interests are:

* Campy music. Quoting an old interview: "Since moving to London he's seen Mamma Mia! three times, Miss Saigon and Saturday Night Fever. Saturday Night Fever is his favourite". One journalist noticed that he had the Grease soundtrack on his Ipod. When asked to describe his ideal night out he said: "My favourite place is a karaoke club. In Sweden nobody would enter the stage without being heavily drunk, but here they get on sober and just sing - and they sing great! But I realise my limits and just watch from some corner of the room." And, well, this would seem to be the clincher: he likes ABBA, too. Poor Thierry Henry was once asked who had the worst music taste in Arsenal, and said: "I'm going to have to say Freddie. Once he [put on] a CD with ABBA in the dressing room. And, you know, I don't mind ABBA, but before a game - maybe it wasn't the thing to [put on] in the dressing room. Obviously, as they are Swedish and he is Swedish, he was pretty proud, but, you know. I don't mind ABBA...but, you know, still...how do you say in England; not my cup of tea." (<333)

* Candy. This is how he describes nights after a game: "The body is worn out but the brain is on speed. So I'll watch TV and eat candy until half past three in the morning." He lists his favourites as: Coca-Cola, Swedish salt liquorice, crème brulee, chocolate mousse and Tesco’s custard-filled doughnuts. A journalist once wrote that his apartment looked like "the home of a wealthy couple who has left their teenage son home alone; really messy and filled with DVDs, sneakers and candy-wrappers".

* Art. He's a collector, and in one interview he revealed that he'd been about to buy one of Damien Hirt's pill box installations for a relatively small sum, but that it was too big for his flat. "I so wish I'd bought it now: it would have been worth about five times as much." His favourite objects are Hungarian and Russian sculptures. "The problem is that they also keep getting bigger and bigger, and I just can't fit them in my flat any more. I'll have to find somewhere else to house my collection soon." (lol)

* Having coffee and hanging out with random, more or less handsome, men (preferably at the same time):

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He is aware of what the media might make of all this, but describes his situation as: "When I have a cup of coffee with a girl she's my girlfriend, when I have coffee with a guy he's my boyfriend. I'm used to that, by now."

* His golden retriever Caesar. There's a scene in the Sky documentary where he takes Caesar to the beach outside of Halmstad; Caesar promptly runs away and Freddie mumbles "shit" and darts to get him. When he returns (not even short of breath, of course) he proudly says: "He's a bird dog, so if he sees birds, he's going to follow..." When asked about his "favourite things" in a Swedish magazine, he listed Caesar: "He is just wonderful. I love talking to people about dogs in general. He has very big floppy ears." He also lists his mobile phone and says: "I'm not sure what I'd do if I lost it, and I particularly love using it to show pictures of my dog Caesar to everyone." He couldn't take him with him, but regularly brings him down to London:

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* Clothes. Freddie's usually can be sorted into two cathegories: swank, and flaming. When he has to dress up for a semi-serious occasion, he'll do it according to his own personal fashion philosophy: "I don't like everything matching together. I want it to be a bit fucked-up and messy. I think that's pretty cool.". Here's a few examples of the swank:

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Here, on the other hand, are but a few examples of his rather more flaming style:

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Although occasionally, he does kick back and relax in the team tracksuit:

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(Oh, and his favourite accessoires are hats and umbrellas.)

5. He has suffered from severe migraine bouts ever since he was a teenager. They're usually triggered if he gets something in his food that he's allergic to (like cheese or red wine), and do seem really rough. Usually he'll lose his vision and won't be able to walk, and has to keep to bed in a pitch-black room for about a week before he's recovered. Jens Lehmann once had to get him off the pitch and drive him home (they're neightbours) because he got an attack during warm-up and just fainted away. The same thing happened before an international friendly last year, and then his best friend in the NT, ex-Arsenal goalie Rami Shaaban, had to stay in his apartment for a week to look after him.

6. Right, I probably should mention his football. Well, his peak was pretty far back in time - the 01-02 season when Arsenal went undefeated all the way to winning both the League and the Cup. Small, feisty and red-haired, Freddie was the darling of Highbury and the media, and a key player the whole season. He ended it by scoring the winning goal in the Cup final against Chelsea, and it seriously is one of the most satisfying goals I've ever seen. Also, have a couple of pics from the pre-shave glory days (Arsenal/NT):

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(Awwww Freddie and his pillow for the bus. <3)

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Reporter: "Dying your hair red - a cunning plan to make yourself a Gooner hero or a daft afternoon in the hairdressers?"
Freddie: ""Er... the second one. I couldn't believe the fuss. Back home, guys dye their hair all sorts of colours and nobody notices."

(And, er, this famous Arsenal pic contains nudity, so, behind a cut.)

Also, here is a very important football quote, from a Swedish interview:
Reporter: "Some footballers seem so relaxed in the locker room, they walk around completely naked in a pair of flip flops and don't even seem aware of it. It's like they enjoy standing around with no clothes talking to others who are fully dressed. Like they aren't ever going to put on clothes again. Are you like that?"
Freddie: "I don't know. I know what you mean, but what the heck, I've been playing football since I was five, it's not like I haven't been around naked men before. So I guess you could say the atmosphere gets pretty relaxed, and you do want to dry before you dress. And you know everybody, so." (So that answers that, I guess.)

On the pitch, Freddie is very fast, and very bitchy. When he gets into fights, he'll usually maintain some distance and just taunt the other player (knowing fully well he doesn't stand a chance in an actual brawl). When asked about his greatest weakness as a footballer, he said: "That I'm too light. The other players just pick me up and move me aside". (I remember well one time when Sweden played England and Freddie was showed into the fence, right next to a microphone. All the viewers were treated to Freddie yelling "What the fuck, motherfucker!" to the other player.) He's a really sore loser, and he and former captain of the NT, Olof Mellberg, often end up at each other's throats discussing match strategies after Sweden has lost a game (for a play-by-play of his history with Mellberg, click here).

He has always been an important part of the Swedish team, although for a couple of years he was critized for not delivering in the NT. There was quite a lot of articles where he was referred to as the "Primadonna", because of his habit to show up to national gatherings just to do some light exercise and "soak in the jacuzzi", and not exactly take pains to go through coach Lagerbäck's tactics before the game (Freddie: "I sometimes feel like raising my hand and asking Lagerbäck to excuse us players that have been on the team for a couple of years, because let's be honest, we know what's coming." He's started to work harder in recent years; some say as a result of becoming team captain after Mellberg resigned. Among others, he scored a very important goal against Paraguay in the WC 06, and was awarded the Golden Ball (Sweden's most prestigous football award) the same year. That was also the year he played the Champion's League final with Arsenal, but was defeated by Barcelona after Henrik Larsson had assisted both goals.

Because of his self-sacrifizing style on the pitch, his body has been easily (and frequently) injured, and he recently transferred to West Ham after being injured for most of the 06-07 season. In all probability, the 05-06 season was his last performance on top of his game - unless he pulls it together for the Euro 08. He's already started planning what to do after he quits football - he wants to travel extensively, and also work with fashion in some form or other, although he doesn't want to specify anything yet. He also wants to start raising a family (he loves kids and has got a godson named Elliot that he'll wheel around Halmstad in a stroller whenever he's home).

7. And because I love the Sky documentary, I've got to list some more of my favourite quotes/moments:

* Sweden NT coach Lars Lagerbäck, fondly reminiscing in front of an empty field: "I couldn't say that I thought he would turn into an international player. Because he was very, very little. In his first match we played Denmark, and he scored twice, so he convinced me rather fast that he would turn into a good player. Even if he was very, very small. But he was quick!"

* Sol Campbell: "He's very loud. Real loud, cause he's got that screechy...that screechy kind of voice, you know, swearing or whatever. You can hear him a mile away. He does swear a hell of a lot."

* After the Cup final in 2002, a reporter gets hold of Freddie on the pitch and asks him what it feels like, winning the title. Freddie, enthusiastically: "It feels very very nice! It's fucking excellent!" As he says this Thierry Henry suddenly jumps into view, hugging him tightly with a squeak, as if trying to muffle the things Freddie's saying.

* As he's dressed for a photoshoot, he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror and exclaims: "I look like Ken!" (the doll), swinging his arms to and fro. He's all freaked out that the haircut won't look good, and the hair dresser is all, gleefully: "You certainly aren't going to look boring, that's for sure". Then he shaves the sides of Freddie's head and dyes the hair auborgine, and Freddie's almost climbing the walls before he gets to see himself in the mirror, repeating "Be dark, be dark..." As he's waiting for the hair dresser to be done styling the spikes, he keeps mumbling little things like "There's too much red in it..." and "But I won't say anything till it's done..."

8. He likes girls who dress like him. His longest relationship was with British model Lauren Gold (she even spent a summer with him in Halmstad):

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And here are a couple of his other girlfriends, to show you his preferences seem rather set. When a reporter asked what he was looking for in a woman he said "To describe my ideal woman is pretty difficult", but then "flashed a naughty grin" and said: "In my locker at school I had a poster of Vanessa Paradis. I really liked her."

9. And here's a couple of pretty pics:

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10. As regards to sex, you could say Freddie's fallen into the Swedish Sex Trap. In that Swedes are often pretty open and honest about their sexual activities, and what they say, then, will often be blown out of proportions. Before the Euro 00, Freddie was interviewed (then 23 years old), and the British press transformed his answers into a story about, quote: “the Swedish ban on sex before games, and our Freddie Ljungberg's apparent preference for whacking away solo all night in front of porn instead”. This is what was said in the interview:
Reporter: "By the way - when you're staying at hotels with the national squad - do you have access to pay-channel television?"
Freddie: "Sure, that's the first thing we switch on and watch."
R: "But you don't watch porn flicks, do you?"
F: "Of course, you get them occasionally. You sit there zapping between channels, and you watch them for a little while. But it's not like I'm glued to the screen watching them. I usually watch movies. We hang around in hotel rooms so much anyway and in the afternoons we usually don't have anything else to do."
R: "I see. But it doesn't seem like a really good way to get prepared for the Euros? Staying up all night long watching porn?"
F: "I didn't say that! I just said that we have all the pay-channels."
R: "Speaking of that, what's your attitude to having sex before matches?"
F: "I usually don't have sex before matches. I turn it down if I've got a match the same day. I guess it's a mental thing. I want to keep my feeling and touch sharp. It’s like I lose the feeling if I do it before a match. I have, a couple of times before, and then my feet felt like concrete when I kicked the ball. If I've got a match at three o 'clock, I'll wait until after that."

He also spoke quite frankly in this interview (pretty much my favourite quote):
"[Freddie] recently told Out Magazine that the hardest part of being a footballer was the injuries. 'This past season I broke two ribs and two bones in my right hand. It makes it hard to shake hands - not to mention certain other things.'"

The sex ban was brought up again in a later interview:
Reporter: "Is it true you're not allowed sex before a match?"
Freddie: "We are always in a hotel the night before, so it's probably true. I try not to."
R: "You try not to, or you try not to stick to the rule?"
F: "No, I try not to have sex!"

Though by this interview, he seemed to have finally learnt his lesson:
Reporter: "You have said you prefer a curvy woman with brains - has your view changed on that?"
Freddie: "Erm. Aha. I think I'll skip that question."
R: "Don't want to narrow the potential field too much?"
F: "No, it's just that every time I talk about sex, it makes big news and it gets embarrassing. During Euro 2000, I did an interview and answered a couple of questions about sex. After that, everywhere [the Swedish squad] went in Europe there were big stories on it, with psychologists analysing my comments."

And consequently, he did show a lot of restraint in this one, with OUT magazine:
Reporter: "So, darling, are you a member of the Foreskin Anonymous?"
Freddie: "Sorry?"
R: "Are you a member of Foreskin Anonymous?"
F: "I don’t know what that is.
R: "C’mon Freddie, don’t play dumb with G.W.! We know all about you, and you are not dumb. Are you circumcised or not circumcised?"
F: "What? Are you kidding?"
R: "I ask the pertinent questions. Didn’t they tell you?"
F: "Well, that’s why I had underwear on. So you wouldn’t know."

(...)

R: "What would you consider your greatest physical asset – your amazing legs, you six pack abdominals, or your tight butt? G.W. believes it is your butt. Do you wax it?"
F: "No, I don’t."
R: "You never wax the cho-cho?"
F: "I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about."
R: "Freddie, please! You are not going to play the dumb jock with G.W.!"
F: "I know, but you can’t ask me such intimate questions..."

(...)

R: "I tell you, when I do go to London, I will be having a hands-on interview with that lunchbox of yours."
F: "Good luck."
R: "And who has the biggest lunchbox in the Arsenal locker rooms?"
F: "Do you really think you’ll get an answer there? No way."

(He'll still visit sick children sporting giant hickeys, though.)

When sports journalists pressed Freddie to deny rumours that he was gay, he'd usually just say he thought the attention was "a compliment" and that his family and friends knew who he was. But when he was interviewed by the gay magazine Attitude, he stated it plainly:
"I'm not. If I were gay, I would just say it. I have tons of gay friends, always have, it wouldn't be a problem to me."

The Attitude article was brought up in a Swedish interview:
Reporter: "You’ve always been quiet about your private life. But you recently went public about not being homosexual in the magazine Attitude."
Freddie: "Yeah. They asked me to confirm or deny it, and I felt a gay magazine was the right place to talk about it. But really, it’s not much to do a story on, haha..."

All of this would have been very convincing if it wasn't for this interview:

Reporter: "What would you do if you weren't a footballer?"
Freddie: "A fighter pilot. It was my childhood dream."
R: "Like Top Gun?"
F: "Yeah! "

****

If you would like some youtubed Freddie, I recommend the Japanese commercial he did with Ono Shinji. I'm in love with this icon petiole made from it:

Here's is a random interview with him in English, because he just speaks the cutest English. For any Swedish-speakers out there, there was a fairly long interview with him after the Golden Ball ceremony. And here's a delightful example of Freddie being too light and springy for his own good. As stated, the Sky documentary has been removed from Youtube, but there are some scenes from it included in this fanvid.

Finally, here's some shirtless pics of Freddie. There are really rather a lot of them on the net (here's a collection of the CK ads), but I like these the best:

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Tags: freddie
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  • (no subject)

    Random 'accessoires a la Freddie Ljungberg' picspam: Hat: Umbrella:

  • (no subject)

    My favourite close-to-canon pairing in the Swedish team = Freddie Ljungberg/Rami Shaaban. Goal keepers are often said to be the smartest players on…

  • (no subject)

    So there are some posts about the Swedish team that I've been meaning to put up here, but have kept on another journal that I've got for collecting…

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