Gunnar Nordahl
Gunnar Nordahl
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Gunnar Nordahl

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Gunnar Nordahl

Nils Gunnar Nordahl (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈɡɵ̌nːar ˈnûːɖɑːl]; 19 October 1921 – 15 September 1995) was a Swedish professional footballer. A highly prolific, powerful, and physically strong striker, with an eye for goal, he is best known for his spell at AC Milan from 1949 to 1956, in which he won the scudetto twice, and also the title of pluricapocannoniere, with an unprecedented five top scorer (capocannonieri) awards, more than any other player in the history of the Italian championship.

Nordahl is Milan’s all-time record goalscorer, and he long held the record for most goals for a single club in the history of Italian league, before being surpassed by Francesco Totti in January 2012. He still holds the record for goals per appearance in Italy. He had several nicknames in Italy, whereof the most famous was Il Cannoniere ("The Prime Gunner"). He was also known as Il Pompiere ("The Fireman") and Il Bisonte ("The Bison'").

A full international between 1942 and 1948, he won 33 caps and scored 43 goals for the Sweden national team. He represented his country at the 1948 Summer Olympics, where he was the joint top scorer alongside Denmark's John Hansen as Sweden won gold.

Nordahl is considered to be one of the greatest Swedish players and one of the best strikers of all-time. In 2017, he was included in FourFourTwo magazine's list of the 100 greatest players of all time, at the 54th position.

He is the father of former footballer Thomas Nordahl.

Nordahl started out at Hörnefors IF in Sweden before moving to first Degerfors IF and then IFK Norrköping. He won four Swedish championships with IFK Norrköping and once scored seven goals in one game. During his time in Swedish clubs, Nordahl scored 149 goals in 172 matches.

Nordahl transferred to AC Milan on 22 January 1949. This made him the first Swedish player to play in a foreign league. Later, he would team up with his national team strike partners, Gunnar Gren and Nils Liedholm to form the renowned Gre-No-Li trio. Playing eight seasons with Milan, he is Serie A's multi-top-scorer a record five times (1949–50, 1950–51, 1952–53, 1953–54 and 1954–55). Nordahl is also Milan's all-time top-scorer, with 210 league goals.

Nordahl is the third-highest Serie A goalscorer of all time, with 225 goals in 291 matches, only behind Silvio Piola and Francesco Totti. That makes Nordahl the top goalscorer among non-Italian players, and he is also the most efficient goalscorer goals in Serie A ever with 0.77 goals/match. He was nicknamed Il Pompiere ("The Fireman"), because of his former job while he played in Sweden.

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