Swedish-Danish midfielder Magnus Mattsson joined FC Copenhagen from NEC Nijmegen in January. On Tuesday night, he made his debut against Manchester City in the Champions League – and became a scorer immediately.
The 24-year-old has a Swedish father and a Danish mother, and can therefore choose to play for both national teams. But there won’t be any games in the blue and yellow shirt.
When Mattsson was interviewed by TV4 Play after the 3-1 loss against City, he said the following about his national team future:
– I am focusing on the Danish national team right now. I haven’t heard anything about the Swedish national team.
Mattsson adds:
– But of course I’m proud to be half-Swedish. My father and grandmother and grandfather are from Helsingborg.
The football channel has previously interviewed national team manager Stefan Pettersson. He then announced that SvFF had no contact with Mattsson, but left the door ajar for a blue-yellow future:
– We will of course keep an eye on him in a different way from now on (after the FCK move). So it may happen that the situation changes, Pettersson said then.
– If we have players that the A national team’s national team captains judge to be good enough to play for Sweden, only then will it be a tough situation. Then it’s like that… if he had played in our Swedish youth national teams, we would have kept track of him via that route. But now he didn’t.
Mattsson has made U21 internationals for Denmark.
