Knut "Knutte" Kroon (19 June 1906 – 27 February 1975) was a Swedish

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugb ...

who played as a striker.

Career

Kroon was born in

Hälsingborg Helsingborg (, , , ) is a city and the seat of Helsingborg Municipality, Scania (Skåne), Sweden. It is the second-largest city in Scania (after Malmö) and ninth-largest in Sweden, with a population of 113,816 (2020). Helsingborg is the ce ...

, and began his career with Stattena IF. In 1925, he moved to the nearby club Helsingborgs IF where he made 516 appearances and scored 318 goals. Kroon won

Allsvenskan Allsvenskan (; en, the All-Swedish, also known as Fotbollsallsvenskan, en, the Football All-Swedish) is a Swedish professional league for men's association football clubs. It was founded in 1924 and is the top tier of the Swedish football lea ...

five times with the club, and retired from his career in 1942. He made 35 appearances in the national team (1925–1934) and was a member of the team in 1934 FIFA World Cup. He scored the winning goal (3-2) in the first round against

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...

. Some sources consider him as the first goalscorer in the history of World Cup preliminary competition, when Sweden scored against Estonia 7 minutes into the game on 11 June 1933, in Stockholm. Some other sources consider this goal was scored by Estonian goalkeeper Evald Tipner, thus being an own goal. He was also part of Sweden's squad at the

1936 Summer Olympics The 1936 Summer Olympics (German: ''Olympische Sommerspiele 1936''), officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad (German: ''Spiele der XI. Olympiade'') and commonly known as Berlin 1936 or the Nazi Olympics, were an international multi-s ...

, but he did not play in any matches.

References

1906 births 1975 deaths Swedish footballers Sweden international footballers 1934 FIFA World Cup players Helsingborgs IF players Allsvenskan players Association football forwards Sportspeople from Helsingborg {{Sweden-footy-forward-stub