Football legend was 89 years old: “The little bird” Kurt Hamrin is dead

Football legend was 89 years old
“The Little Bird” Kurt Hamrin is dead

February 4, 2024, 4:33 p.m

Kurt Hamrin celebrated his greatest successes in Italy; he is still the record goalscorer at AC Florence. With the Swedish national team he reached the final of the World Cup in 1958 – with a victory over the German team, whose fans made Hamrin a bogeyman.

Swedish football mourns the loss of its legend Kurt “Kurre” Hamrin. The former winger died at the age of 89, according to a statement from his former club Fiorentina. Hamrin became known to a wider German audience at the 1958 World Cup in Sweden – and became a bogeyman for many German fans.

The attacker was one of the outstanding players at the tournament in Sweden, scoring a total of four goals and leading the hosts to runner-up in the World Cup. In the final, Hamrin’s team lost to Brazil 2:5, with 17-year-old Pelé contributing to the final score shortly before the end. In Germany, however, the focus was primarily on the semi-final, which the DFB team lost 1:3 (1:1) in Gothenburg despite a 1-0 lead. The Germans felt disadvantaged by the referee and even spoke of a scandalous game.

Hamrin scored the decisive goal in front of almost 50,000 spectators in the Ullevi Stadium – and provoked Erich Juskowiak’s dismissal after just under an hour. From the perspective of the German audience, this red card was the cause of the defeat, which dashed the reigning world champion’s hopes of successfully defending their title. In the game for third place, the DFB team lost to France 3:6, Just Fontaine scored 10 to 13 goals and still holds the record for the most goals at a World Cup.

For Hamrin, the World Cup in his own country was the highlight of his surprisingly short national team career – because he was active in Italy for a long time, he only played 32 times for Sweden, scoring 16 goals. “Kurre” also played twice for the Swedish national ice hockey team, but then decided to play football. Like many other Swedes, he moved to Italy, coming to Juventus Turin from AIK Solna in 1956. He came to AC Fiorentina via Calcio Padova, for whom he scored 208 goals in 362 competitive games – no one has scored more often for Fiorentina to date.

Because of his light-footed style of play, Hamrin was also called “the little bird” (Italian: l’uccellino), moved from Florence to AC Milan and then to SSC Napoli before ending his career at IFK Stockholm in Sweden. With Milan, Hamrin won the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1967, became Italian champions in 1968 and won the European Champions’ Cup in 1969, the predecessor of the Champions League. Hamrin also led Fiorentina to the Cup Winners’ Cup (1961), two victories in the Italian Cup (1961 and 1965) and the title in the Mitropa Cup (1966).