Lindgren quits – played together with van Dijk and Suarez: “Maximized my career”

Rasmus Lindgren left Landskrona when he was 18 and moved to Amsterdam to play for Ajax. Every now and then an international career took off and when he returned to Swedish football as a 31-year-old he had won league gold with Ajax and Red Bull Salzburg, and also cup gold for both clubs and also for Groningen.

After almost six seasons in Häcken, Lindgren has now decided to end his playing career after the season.

– It feels good to have made that decision. The nail in the coffin was that I have been injured now for a few months. The last injury I received now, it felt like now it should be enough, says Lindgren, who turns 37 in November, and continues:

– I might have quit anyway, but now it so happened that this became the final decision. Now I want to have time to come back and play a little before the season ends so that Mjällby away as a midfielder will not be my last match. It would have been fun to be involved in the last few months, you want to be involved and contribute a little anyway.

How do you sum up your career?

– I have had as good a career as possible, I think. I have probably maximized my career decently. I have never been the super talent as it is written about and so on. But I have done it as well as I could.

You left Swedish football and signed for Ajax, there were two stays at the club – how do you sum up your time there?

– I came down as a youth player and got to experience everything with the academy. It was sickly instructive. I managed to get up and do A-team matches, it was something I had not expected when I got there as a youth professional.

In the 2005 season, the then central midfielder Lindgren was first loaned out to Groningen, and then it became a purchase. He was there for two and a half years before Ajax bought him back for about SEK 25 million.

– My second turn in Ajax was for three and a half years and it was a very fun period. I was not a given starting player all the time but was still a valued player. I am happy to have been in such a big club and still been appreciated, he says and continues:

– I am also happy that we won the league during my last year there. And that I got to play the Champions League there. There were some fantastic players I was there with then, like (Klaas-Jan) Huntelaar, (Luis) Suarez, (Christian) Eriksen, (Jan) Vertonghen, (Toby) Alderweireld, and so on.

Rasmus Lindgren and Luis Suarez also played together in Groningen. And in that club, the Swede was one of the team’s most important players.

– There I had my absolute best years. First I went there from Ajax and it was a snap down. But there I was a given and supporting player, that was the difference there. The years I was there we were extremely successful and we went to Europe four out of six times. In addition, I got to win the cup with Groningen, which is their only title, and it’s big. So there I had my very best time, says Lindgren, who in addition to Suarez was a teammate with the Dutch midfielder Virgil van Dijk, and also with several Swedes, such as Fredrik Stenman, Marcus Berg and Mattias Florén.

So there was one club left that Rasmus Lindgren has played in. We take it from the beginning. Landskrona, Ajax, Groningen, Ajax – and then a move to Red Bull Salzburg.

– Yes, that’s a small parenthesis in my career. I wanted a team that was in Europe and could win titles. I succeeded in that. I had a pretty good year there, says Lindgren who then moved back to the Netherlands for a second stay in Groningen.

There he became team captain and after a while took the step down from central midfielder to midfielder. And it was also as a midfielder that he was recruited by Häcken in May 2016, and in the 2017 season he became team captain.

– It was a new league for me, I had never played there. But I had always had in the back of my mind that I wanted to play in the Allsvenskan, he says and continues:

– I have had a fantastic time in Häcken. I thrive incredibly well in the club. It was the right choice of club, it is very well run and has a good organization. During my years there, we have been a stable top five team, and I have been able to spice it up with a cup of gold. What may have been missing has probably been the real peak to have a real peak year.

Rasmus Lindgren made two international appearances, the first was in 2008 in a 1-3 loss against the Netherlands, and the second in 2009 in a 0-2 loss against Serbia. Should there have been more internationals?

– No I do not think so. Somewhere you get what you deserve. I made the international appearances during my second stay at Ajax, and I was also forced to say no at some point due to injury. But I was probably not good enough to be there so much more. It is clear that it was fun to play international matches, but I never had a huge drive to be there, the clubs I have played for have been so important to me, he says.

Rasmus Lindgren already has a clear idea of ​​what he wants to do after his playing career. He has already attended the coaching training for former elite players (CBA Elite).

– I absolutely want to be a coach. I want to go into it and invest in it, he says.

Since Lindgren is still a player and there are a couple of months left of the season and before the shoes are put on the shelf, he does not want to talk too much about next year.

– The focus is still on the here and now and to finish well as a player in Häcken. So we will see what happens next year, but I know that Häcken has had the ambition to keep me in the organization, but in what role we will see, he says.

Do you prefer to be an A-team coach or rather develop young people?

– I want to be more against A-team. Then it is probably not wrong to start with something else, such as academia. But I do not think there is a path that is right for all coaches to begin with, so it remains to be seen what is the right path for me.

– But the goal eventually is to be a coach for A-team. We will see if it will be in Häcken or elsewhere.

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