Malmoe to play Nott. Forest

Press, 28 May 1979, Page 3

Malmoe to play Nott. Forest

NZPA-Reuter Malmoe (Sweden) Malmoe will be the first Swedish team to contest the European Cup final when it meets England’s Nottingham Forest in Munich, on Wednesday, but they are already well established as Sweden’s most successful soccer club. With a record of 43 consecutive years in the Swedish first division, Malmoe has won the league championship 12 times and the Swedish Cup on 10 occasions.

In the late 1940 s and early 19505, they won the league title four times in five years. But since a British: manager, Bob Houghton, took charge in 1973 Malmoe has scaled even greater heights and finally broken through in European matches.

Mr Houghton arrived at the club after one of Malrnoe’s more dismal domestic seasons in which it finished sixth in the league. He immediately led the side to three league and cup doubles in four seasons.

Success in wider European tournaments was harder to come by. Since 1964 Malmoe has played every season except one in the European Cup, Cupwinners’ Cup or

the Fairs (now U.E.F.A.) Cup — but only twice, until this year did they get beyond the first round. Seven Malmoe players represented Sweden in last year’s W’orld Cup finals in Argentina. But of these, the midfielder, Bo Larsson, will miss Wednesday’s match because of a knee injury, and the striker, Thomas Sjoeberg, is expected to return to Malmoe only later this year after a season playing in Saudi Arabia and North America. Other Swedish inter-: nationals include the midfield player, Staffan Tapper, and the defender, Ingermar Erlandsson at 21, already considered one of Sweden’s best-ever backs — and freekick specialist Roy Anderson, not to be confused with the two other players also called Anderson in the Malmoe team.

But the side’s fortunes against Nottingham Forest may well revolve around two other players — the midfielder, Anders Ljundberg, nicknammed “Puskas” after the Hungarian star, and Tommy Hansson, whose header against Austrian Wien, the only goal in the two-leg match, put Malmoe into the European Cup final.