Freddie Ljungberg joins Celtic!

Freddie Ljungberg last night insisted it was the passion of the Celtic fans, and not a big payday, that convinced him to swap Major League Soccer for Parkhead.

The 33-year-old Swede admitted he was so overwhelmed by pleas from supporters as he walked the streets of Glasgow that he decided to take their advice and put pen to paper on a deal until at least the end of the season.

‘Since I came to Glasgow, everything has been so positive,’ said the former Arsenal star, who was previously with Chicago Fire.

‘People have been coming up to me on the street and saying: “Please sign for Celtic”.
‘That has been heart-warming. Different things help you make a decision to move, but hearing that when I was walking around the city was great.

‘I realise it is massive here in Glasgow and I missed that passion. People get angry if the team doesn’t win and that’s something I thrive on.

‘In America, the league is much better than it gets credit for but Celtic are a massive club and I have missed the passion for the sport. If you are looking for passion then it’s here. There is a great support, the fans and the passion are very good.’

Ljungberg is in line for an SPL baptism of fire against Rangers at Ibrox tomorrow and is desperate to experience the derby occasion after his spell in the States.

He said: ‘The thing I missed the most in America was the fact that people actually care and regard it (football) as everything, and this derby has all that.

‘I have never been to the Glasgow derby before, but I played with Johan Mjallby and Henrik Larsson in the national team for a long time and heard about the game. I would love to play.’

Ljungberg hasn’t played for 10 weeks since his last appearance in the MLS, however, and now manager Neil Lennon must decide if three or four Lennoxtown
training sessions are enough for him to start against Rangers.

‘It is tempting, yes, given Freddie’s quality but it is a while since he last played and there’s only so much training we can do now,’ said the Celtic boss.

Meanwhile, Lennon insisted that Ljungberg’s signing could make the club more attractive to other big names during the transfer window, with Aston Villa pair
Richard Dunne and Stephen Ireland already loan targets and Utrecht’s Michael Silberbauer also on the radar — with the Dutch club claiming they expect a January
bid for their Danish midfielder.

‘Freddie coming here won’t stop us looking at others,’ said Lennon after the completion of a halfseason deal with the Swede, believed to be worth around
£500,000.

‘Maybe people like them (Dunne and Ireland) will see Ljungberg here and know we are pretty serious about things.’

Sporting Lisbon defender Marco Caneira remains a potential £1million signing, with Celtic insisting a deal could yet be revived despite reports in Portugal claiming he turned down a move after initially agreeing terms.

Lennon said: ‘He was here a couple of weeks ago. He has gone back to Lisbon for the time being but he could come back again. We may not sign quite as many players as people might think — but there is scope there.’

It seems certain that Ljungberg’s arrival won’t be the last this January, with Nottingham Forest defender Kelvin Wilson still being pursued, while trials are effectively under way for midfielder Dwayne de Rosario andCroatian defender Dino Skvorc.

Freddie Ljungberg has made his case for a second season in the Windy City.

Seattle Sounders FC has been better without Freddie Ljungberg. The 22 points accrued in the opening 18 matches of their season and the 26 obtained in the final 12 after the Swede was dealt on July 30 attests to their improvement.

Similarly, the fall of the Fire since Ljungberg’s acquisition has tarnished his reputation – fans discarding him into the receptacle labeled “DP busts”.

Despite this criticism, Ljungberg has quietly put together a productive 2010. Three goals and 10 assists – a trio tallied while in the Emerald City – leaves the 33-year-old tied for fifth in the league in helpers as the MLS regular season concludes.

Saturday night against Chivas USA, Ljungberg electrified the Home Depot Center, scoring on a left-footed finish and setting up the goals of Brian McBride and Calen Carr.

The majestic performance commenced in the 40th minute when Ljungberg assisted on McBride’s final career goal. Receiving a throw-in, Ljungberg turned on his defender, dashed to the byline, and softly nutmegged a pass through Ante Jazic’s legs. Charging to the near post, McBride deftly flicked behind his left leg to finish.

“Freddie just has this uncanny ability of finding people,” McBride said in Fox Soccer Channel’s post-game interview. “I made a run near post and he found me. Thankfully, I put it in.”

It would only take Ljungberg two minutes in the second half to find his own goal.

Constantly tip-toeing across the field, Ljungberg contributes – like all great playmakers – in ways that aren’t instantly apparent in a scoreline. Over the course of the year, 73 fouls, the third most in MLS, have been committed against Ljungberg. Discussion over his incessant complaints to MLS officials has overshadowed the grueling beating he has taken while in the U.S.

In a team that has lacked a central creator since Cuauhtémoc Blanco’s return to Mexico, Ljungberg has been the outlet through which most of Chicago’s attacks have started – a difficult request for someone arriving midseason. Since the inception of the DP mechanism, 12 of these stars have landed somewhere towards or past the middle of an MLS season: David Beckham, Julian de Guzman, Blaise Nkufo, Branko Boskovic, Mista, Thierry Henry, Rafa Marquez, Nery Castillo, Alvaro Fernandez, Geovanni, Blanco, and Luis Angel Landin.

Reread that list. How many were outward successes in their first half-years with their clubs? Blanco, Nkufo, and Marquez, certainly. Henry, Geo, and Fernandez have all shown their quality, but also indicate the time needed to become acclimated with the rigors of MLS and gel with their teammates.

Now, Ljungberg is a unique case as he was already playing for a team within the league. He’s already become accustomed with the . . . let’s call them 'interesting' decisions of MLS officials. But that doesn’t solve the period that the Swede still requires to gel with his Chicago teammates. Thrown into a difficult situation where he was expected to deliver a playoff birth with a first-year MLS manager, Ljungberg has managed to adjust himself as best as could be expected.

A lot of turnover is expected this off-season in Chicago with McBride and C.J. Brown retiring and the less than certain futures of Nery Castillo, Wilman Conde, and manager Carlos de los Cobos. If Ljungberg remains in the Windy City, anticipate a season in which he builds upon his assist-every-two matches ratio.

Even if the Chicago front office wants Ljungberg to stay, it’s out of their hands as he holds a player option for 2011. And as the past off-season with Seattle illustrated, the wants of Ljungberg can be difficult to predict.

So, what's the consensus? Do you think Freddie will be with the Fire in the upcoming months?

Ljungberg Lights Up San Jose

Designated Player Freddie Ljungberg played wonderfully Wednesday night. The Swedish forward/midfielder dominated the match, scoring a beautiful goal – his first in a Fire uniform – and providing two assists in 90 minutes of action.

“I felt great,” Ljungberg told MLSsoccer.com after the match. “My teammates played really well, they made me look good, so I thank them. And, of course, I’m quite happy with my performance.”

Ljungberg’s goal was particularly well worked. Winger Patrick Nyarko fed the former Seattle player streaking just outside the 18 in the 72nd minute. The World Cup vet took a fabulous first touch, splitting two San Jose defenders to get into the left side of the area, then put an audacious left-footed chip past ‘keeper Jon Busch and inside the far post.

Performances like Wednesday night’s will have Fire fans clamoring for Ljungberg, a fan of head coach Carlos de los Cobos’ attacking style of play, to pick up his player option and return to Chicago in 2011.

Pepsi drops Ljungberg

Freddie Ljungberg may be happy about his move to Chicago Fire but Pepsi is not. The soft drink company has dropped the Swedish player as a result of his recent trade. His three year contract was effectively broken as a result of the Chicago Fire being sponsored by one of Pepsi's major competitors.

Currently, Chicago Fire's presenting partner is Best Buy. According to their site, other partners including American Airlines, Adidas, Bush's Baked Beans, Cardinal Fitness, Chicago Soccer, Embassy Suites, Fisher Nuts, Home Depot, Life Source, Safeway Insurance United Health Care, Van Kampen Investments, and Walgreens. So which one of those is a competitor of Pepsi?

Oddly, one MLS's major sponsors is Pepsi as well as two of its subsidiaries, Aquafina and Gatorade. With every MLS club apart of the Pepsi Refresh Project, why would you drop one of the league's most recognizable names from a contract which was about to expire anyway? The simple answer is Pepsi doesn't want to spend a lot of money on an MLS player.

When Pepsi first signed Ljungberg, he was playing in the English Premier League and the Captain of the Swedish National Team. Although the Swede still makes the papers back home, he is no longer a member of the Swedish National Team. When Sweden failed to qualify for the World Cup, there was no reason for Pepsi's Swedish division to place Ljungberg in a ad campaign. Therefore, the company faced an ultimatum place Ljungberg in an ad campaign or drop him. We all know Pepsi wouldn't place a European soccer player let alone an MLS player in a US ad campaign. Not only that, Pepsi just implemented the Pepsi Refresh Project. With that, the likelihood of any athlete getting an ad campaign is unlikely. So, Ljungberg was given the axe.

It's unfortunate because it's one of the few endorsement deals the Chicago Fire player has. Ljungberg and his management aren't taking full advantage of the designated player rule. While David Beckham is willing to endorse everything from Armani to Sharpie pens, the quiet Swede is content on just playing "soccer." He even told NBC that he is very picky about what he endorses. However, it's not the time to be picky. When your 33 years-old, you career is nearly over. You have to strike the iron when it's hot. If people want you to endorse something, endorse it!

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Good article about Freddie's trade...

There hasn't been much Freddie news of late, but still I ran across this article from the Seattle Times by Steve Kelley. It showcases what I like best about Freddie & that is his professionalism & his character. (Besides his looks!) In this article Freddie provides some insight into what transpired during his trade. Enjoy!


Chicago had played the night before in Los Angeles, and Freddie Ljungberg wanted to stop in Seattle and pick up a few of his belongings before rejoining his Fire teammates.

And because every leave-taking in sports seems to happen so swiftly and dispassionately, Ljungberg wanted to have one night, one real chance, to say goodbye to his Sounders FC teammates.

This brief stop in Seattle earlier this month was his only chance.

"My plan was always, I wanted to take the whole team for dinner," Ljungberg said Friday afternoon. "All of them. But the timing wasn't perfect."

The Sounders were on the road when Ljungberg, who was traded to Chicago on July 30, came to town, but he took the players who didn't make the road trip — David Estrada, Pat Noonan, Brad Evans and others — to dinner at Canlis. Ljungberg picked up the tab.

"They're my friends," Ljungberg said. "I thought it was the right thing to do. We're going to have another dinner after (Saturday's) game."

There is a perception that there was a lot of bitterness in Ljungberg's farewell to Seattle, that he left on the wrong note and his teammates were happy to see him go.

But reports of such a rift have been grossly exaggerated.

Sitting in a ballroom in a downtown Seattle hotel after Friday's training, wearing his new Fire sweats, Ljungberg, in a one-on-one interview, reflected on his season-and-a-half with the Sounders.

"I can't control what people think and write, but that (perception) is so far from the truth," said Ljungberg, who will make his Seattle homecoming with Chicago on Saturday night.

The truth, according to Ljungberg, is that he received inquiries from European teams, including a serious proposal from a Champions League club. He went to the Sounders early in the summer and talked about the possibility of a transfer.

"It was just a case of different cultures, from what I'm used to in Europe and the way things are done in America," Ljungberg said. "I was told (by the Sounders) that in America, you negotiate when your contract is up (in November). I said, 'OK, but I'm from Europe, and that's not how my world works.'

"I told them there is a lot of interest in me at the moment and I am 33 years old and I need to know the deal, what is happening. I said to them that I love it here. Everything is great, but I have offers and I have to look at them and then consider what I want to do. For me, the big thing was, should I go back to Europe and play, or should I stay here?

"It was pretty straightforward. The only thing where maybe I got a little upset was maybe when I said that I wanted to look at my options, and then Sigi (Schmid, Sounders coach) wouldn't let me train with the team. I will never understand that, but that's how it is."

Eventually, Ljungberg was traded to the Fire, where he has been a spark in its push for the playoffs. Chicago is 2-1-1 and Ljungberg has three assists since the trade.

And since his last game with Seattle, the Sounders are undefeated in six league games.

"It's really been a win-win for both sides," Sounders general manager Adrian Hanauer said.

The impact Ljungberg — a former Swedish international and midfield mainstay at Arsenal — had on Seattle was enormous. Signing keeper Kasey Keller and Ljungberg gave the expansion franchise instant credibility.

Ljungberg added class to the Sounders' attack. He was the engine room in the team's surprising first-season success. The city's soccer fans embraced him. All last year, and even now that he's gone, the seats at Qwest Field have been rich with green No. 10 Ljungberg jerseys.

He was an all-star last season, and he sold merchandise as he helped sell the game in this city.

"I think that other people should say what my legacy will be here," Ljungberg said. "What I hope for is that, you know, when I came here there was nothing and I took a bit of a leap of faith, if you want to say that. I wanted to establish soccer in this area of America.

"And we did something that was maybe quite remarkable. We won the (U.S. Open) Cup. We had a successful season in the first season of the franchise. We went to the playoffs. I think that's something to be remembered by, or whatever. But the thing that I will remember, what is most important to me, is the people and how they embraced me.

"When I came from Europe, I was told that Americans don't care about soccer and this and that. But the way people cared was beyond my wildest expectations. You can't manufacture that."

Coming from Arsenal, Ljungberg had an expectation for how the game should be played. There were times when he would make a run and not receive the ball, or float a perfect cross into the box that wasn't converted, and he would demonstrate his frustration with his younger, less experienced teammates by holding his head or raising his arms to the sky.

When asked about that Friday, Ljungberg said such demonstrations are part of his personality, a manifestation of his will to win. He meant no disrespect.

"I tried to be very calm on the field," he said, "but at the same time, if you're a player who wants to win and someone misses an open chance and you're not going to win the game, of course, you're going to get disappointed. In the second that it happens you might show something with your expression, but after that, I just got on with it, you know, 'Let's score on the next chance.'

"But in those 90 minutes of the game, I say to my teammates, 'You can yell whatever the hell you want at me as long as you think it will make me play better.' You can tell me you want me to go to the moon, or wherever you want me to go. That's what it's all about. To play better. To win. There's nothing else to it."

Before Saturday's game, when he is introduced to the crowd, Ljungberg will hear a long, loud, appreciative ovation from the sold-out house. And then sometime early in the game, maybe when Sounders midfielder Ossie Alonso challenges him and he falls to the turf, Ljungberg will get booed.

And because he is such a competitor and because he wants to win so badly, even Freddie Ljungberg will appreciate the passion for the sport that is the true source of those boos.

Freddie at Wrigley

Freddie Ljungberg threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Chicago Cubs baseball game at Wrigley Field Tuesday, Aug. 31st.

The hottest athlete you've never heard of...

Unless you're European, a soccer buff or a fan of Calvin Klein underwear ads, you might have no clue who Freddie Ljungberg is. To most of the rest of the world, though, the Swedish footballer is one of Chicago's most famous athletes.

Ljungberg, 33, is quiet and friendly. But don't expect a flashy, entourage-sporting jock who'll make noise in the club scene.

"I can say, I'm quite a shy person," Ljungberg admits, resting one arm over a folding chair at Toyota Park, where he now plays for the Chicago Fire. It's a blockbuster signing for the team, currently on the cusp of making the playoffs.

Ljungberg's $1.3 million annual salary makes him--along with teammate Nery Castillo--one of the highest-paid players in Major League Soccer, and one of only eight who make more than $1 million a year. But the midfielder is used to earning his keep.

Ljungberg, a former Calvin Klein model, must have felt something like a god back in England, where he played for Arsenal--one of the most high-profile teams in the English Premier League. Ljungberg not only had a blisteringly prosperous nine years with the club, but he won Sweden's top footballing honors, the Guldbollen, twice. After a year with West Ham United, he moved to the MLS expansion team Seattle Sounders last year and made the move to Chicago just last month.

It's been a cultural adjustment. In the U.S., Ljungberg says, "you get recognized and people talk to you, but it's not the same. Soccer, or, football, is religion back home."

And the culture is worlds apart. He remembers attending a meeting with Seattle business owners in which one man asked a question about what the U.S. might be able to do with some real athletes playing soccer. He laughed.

"The best soccer players in the world ... you have those people here, you just need to develop them and make them grow," Ljungberg says. "It's not that you have to take an American football player and basketball player and make him into a soccer player."

But no one has to convince soccer fans--or Fire players--how crucial of an addition Ljungberg can be to the team. Calen Carr, a Fire forward, is an early devotee.

"Freddie is a fantastic player. He has completely changed our team and the way we're able to play," Carr says. "He's a guy that I've watched for a long time. Arsenal was always my favorite team growing up, so to be able to play with him really is an honor."

And coach Carlos de los Cobos calls the Fire fortunate to have Ljungberg.

"He very soon, very fast, adapted to the team, adapted to the group and produced for the team," said de los Cobos, calling the Swedish player a joy to coach. "He's transmitting to these [other players] confidence. ... I think we are lucky."

For Ljungberg's part, he's still learning about Chicago, finding and settling in to his new home in the Gold Coast and figuring out what he'll do with his free time--once he has it. He said he's had to cancel trips to Sunda, a restaurant he's been hoping to try, three times because he was too tired. But the city has impressed so far.

"I lived 10 years, all of my grown-up life in London. It reminds me of London," he says. "You have a beach downtown, which is quite cool, I must say, to have in a big city. I do really like it."

He's been properly warned about the winter weather but doesn't seem worried. Maybe it's the Swedish blood. He's far more focused on helping the team reach the playoffs this year.

"That's the goal, and I think it's important to know what's at stake," Ljungberg says. "Even if that's pressure, I think pressure makes you play better sometimes. You know, this is serious."

Some might recognize Ljungberg from his modeling days, a time he acknowledges with humility and a wry grin. He said it took months for him to be convinced to do underwear modeling.

At first, Ljungberg says, "I was like, there's no way I'm taking off my clothes." He got more comfortable over the years with being the only half-dressed person in the room, but isn't sure if he'd take a similar opportunity again. "I always get some offers now and then to do things," he says. But "for me it's important that it's all authentic. It's quite often I say no."

And although he loves fashion and architecture and owns a bistrolike restaurant, Gastons Halmstad in Sweden, when it comes down to it, Ljungberg mostly indulges his one true passion.

"I like to have a coffee, then maybe a dinner in the evening, just socialize with my friends. That's what I enjoy. ... Apart from that, my life is football, or soccer, as you say it."