Jonas Olsson (38) has since stopped playing football for a while, but the former NEC defender looks back on his career with pride. The Swede, who left for the Premier League after his period in Nijmegen, was well received in the Netherlands.
Olsson moved to the Netherlands at the age of 22 to play his matches in De Goffert. “In advance, other Swedish players had warned me that the mentality in the Dutch dressing room would be a bit more egocentric. In practice, that turned out to be untrue at NEC,” Olsson said in an interview with NEC. Football International. “Everyone did their best to make me feel at home as soon as possible. Captain Peter Wisgerhof, for example, immediately asked if I was coming to eat with his family.”
Olsson, a tireless central defender, has retained a good friendship from his time in the Netherlands. “Ola is my best friend from the football world. He still plays for Malmö FF, so when I’m in the south I visit him regularly,” Olsson refers to his relationship with the former PSV player. “When he played at Melbourne Victory, we visited him with some friends. We went there to watch a few games of tennis at the Australian Open. It was a great trip.”
exchange shirt
After his stint with NEC, Olsson left for West Bromwich Albion, then active in the Premier League. “Then I thought: it can’t be a much higher level, can it? Well, I came back to that the moment I stood there in the tunnel next to Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Dimitar Berbatov and my idol Rio Ferdinand”, so Olsson thinks back with a smile.
“I was impressed by those names, but I didn’t exchange a shirt that afternoon. My maxim was always: I never ask for a shirt after a defeat. I never wanted to come across as a tourist. shirts from big names like Lionel Messi and Ronaldo in my closet,” concludes Olsson.
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