After being sacked by Hungarian club Pick Szeged, there has been speculation about where Jim Gottfridsson's career would go. On Tuesday morning, the answer came: he will return to parent club IFK Ystad.
"To be able to wear the red shirt again means an incredible amount," he said in a statement on the club's website.
The move to Ystad means playing in Allsvenskan, the Swedish second division. But despite a significant step down in the handball hierarchy, the door to the national team is still open, at least that's what Sweden coach Michael Apelgren thinks.
"We don't want to paint ourselves into a corner where we say, if you play in the Allsvenskan you can't play in the national team. When we select a squad, we look at the overall picture, who you're competing with, what the performances have been like and what we as a team need," he says.
How is a performance in the Swedish Premier League valued compared with those who play in significantly better leagues?
We'll see. Our task is to select the squad that we believe is best suited to winning medals.
Unusual step
As recently as last Friday, Gottfridsson himself announced that he had reached an agreement with Pick Szeged after a contract dispute.
A move to the Allsvenskan may be seen as an unusual step for a player who has been named the world's best handball player (2022) and has won two German league titles, the Champions League with Flensburg and the European Championship with Sweden, among other things. But according to him, he is not moving home to settle down.
"I want to win matches, contribute with my experiences and help IFK Ystad return to where the club belongs," he says on IFK Ystad's website.
“Always ready”
Despite the conflict with Pick Szeged, where Michael Apelgren is the coach on a daily basis, Jim Gottfridsson was selected for the latest national team squad in May. At that time, he announced that his goal is to continue in the national team through the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. As far as Michael Apelgren knows, the move to IFK Ystad has not changed that.
"I haven't heard anything else. He has always declared that he is always ready for Sweden if given the opportunity," says Apelgren.
