Conference trucks::football;1

119.0. "Il Proffessore" by GOTA1::APPELQVIST (I tunneled Hys�n!!!) Fri Nov 15 1991 15:07

One of the greatest footballplayers in history, Gunnar Gren, past away last 
night, 71 years old.

He started his career only 17 years old in the premier league 1938, and became
one of the best players in the world after the war. He took a olympic gold 1948
and became then a part of the famous Gre-No-Li offence of Milan. They had a 
tremendous capability of getting threw defenses, and the took Milan to gold 
their first year as pros, the first gold for Milan after 44 years. They became
idols in Milano. Later Gunnar Gren moved to Fiorentina, then Genoa and finally 
back to Sweden. 

He always played with #8 on his back. 1970 he was awarded "Best swedish player
of all times. He has scored many classical goals, the penaly against Yugoslavia
in the olympic final 1948 is one of them. He scored "The forgotten goal", 2-1
against West-Germany in the semifinal 1958 on Ullvi here in Gothenburg. A shot
from 25-30 yards went just under the bar, "hanging" in the net a second or two
before bouncing down on the ground. With only a few minutes to go, Kurt Hamrin
scored 3-1 from a dead angle, an that goal became one of the most classical
goals of Swedish football history.

Unfotunatelly he died alone, poor and forgotten. The last years he never watched
Swedish or English football, "There is no profiles", he said. But if there was
Italian football on TV, he never missed it. A Italian youth team, Voluntas, 
needed help this summer during the enormous tornament "Gothia Cup", and Gunnar
sais immediatelly that he would help the Italians for free. His love for
Italian football never stopped, and when he visited Italy after his professional
carrer, he was always remembered as "Il Proffessore", the genious.

He was truely one of the gratest

Mats