I swapped shirts with Ronaldo before quitting football to work in a bank after leaving Liverpool
It was on this day last year that the controversial mid-season 2022 World Cup got underway in Qatar.
And as the tournament’s group-stages unfolded, it was during a period of procrastination while starved of club football, watching Cameroon in action and their manager, former Liverpool defender Riogbert Song, appear on screen that a member of the ECHO sports desk asked the most important of questions.
“Whatever happened to Daniel Sjolund?”
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Gerard Houllier signed the then-teenage Finnish striker from West Ham United in a £1m deal in November 2000, in a switch that had seen Song move the other way. Yet despite being highly-rated, he never made the grade at Anfield and returned to Scandinavia within three years.
So, inspired by our sister’s site Wales Online’s famous search for former Liverpool academy graduate Jason Koumas back in 2018, the ECHO sports’ desk got to work. It turns out, Sjolund was a lot easier to track down.
One Wikipedia search later and we discovered that he has been manager of FC Aland since November 2021. A Google search later and we uncovered that he is also Director of Football at the small lower-division club from Sund, located on the Aland Islands to the west of Finland. Born on the island in 1983, it is Sjolund’s hometown team.
Attentions turned back to watching Cameroon, piqued further by Song’s falling out with future Manchester United goalkeeper Andre Onana as the shot-stopper was subsequently sent home, as the Indomitable Lions suffered a group-stage exit despite a heroic 3-3 comeback draw with Serbia and famous
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