Andreas Ravelli (born 13 August 1959) is a Swedish former

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, rugby lea ...

who played as a

central defender In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield player whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Defenders fall into four main categories: centre-backs, full-backs, sweepers ...

. He played primarily for Öster and

IFK Göteborg Idrottsföreningen Kamraterna Göteborg (officially IFK Göteborg Fotboll), commonly known as IFK Göteborg, IFK (especially locally) or Blåvitt, is a Swedish professional Football team, football club based in Gothenburg. Founded in 1904, it ...

during a club career that spanned between 1977 and 1996. A full international between 1980 and 1989, he won 41

caps Caps are flat headgear. Caps or CAPS may also refer to: Science and technology Computing * CESG Assisted Products Service, provided by the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters * Composite Application Platform Suite, by Java Caps, a Java ...

and scored two goals for the Sweden national team. He is the twin brother of

Thomas Ravelli Thomas Ravelli (; born 13 August 1959) is a Swedish former professional Association football, footballer who played as a Goalkeeper (association football), goalkeeper. His 21-year professional career was almost exclusively associated with Öster ...

Club career

Born in

Vimmerby Vimmerby () is a city and the seat of Vimmerby Municipality, Kalmar County, Sweden with 10,934 inhabitants in 2010. Overview Stångån is a small river running through the city. Vimmerby had its charter as early as the fourteenth century. The ...

, Ravelli started playing professionally for

Östers IF Östers Idrottsförening, commonly known as Östers IF or simply Öster, is a Swedish sports club located in Växjö, specializing in Association football, football. For the 2025 Allsvenskan, 2025 season the club is back in the top tier, Allsve ...

, lasting 11 seasons with the team and winning two

Allsvenskan Allsvenskan (; ), also known as Fotbollsallsvenskan (, ) is a professional association football league in Sweden and the highest level of the Swedish football league system. Founded in 1924, it operates on a system of promotion and relegatio ...

titles before signing for

. At age 31, he moved to amateur football, representing

Lenhovda IF Lenhovda IF is a Swedish sports association, located in Lenhovda, Sweden and was founded in 1928. The club runs several sports, mostly known for their football (soccer) club but also for ice hockey, skiing, tennis, gymnastics and badminton ...

– two stints – and Hovmantorp until his retirement (he also represented Öster in between). Later, he also worked as manager of his main club.

International career

Ravelli won 41

for

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

, his debut coming on 12 November 1980 in a 0–0 away draw against

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

for the

1982 FIFA World Cup The 1982 FIFA World Cup was the 12th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial Association football, football tournament for men's senior national teams, and was played in Spain from 13 June to 11 July 1982. The tournament was won by Italy national footbal ...

qualifiers. He never participated in any international tournament, however.

Personal life

Ravelli's twin brother,

Thomas Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the A ...

, is also a former footballer, who played as goalkeeper. Their father was an Austrian immigrant of Italian descent who moved to Sweden in 1952, and the siblings played alongside each other in Öster and the national team as well as one year in Göteborg.

References

External links

Svensk Fotboll profile
* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ravelli, Andreas 1959 births Living people Swedish twins Swedish people of Austrian descent Swedish people of Italian descent Swedish men's footballers Men's association football defenders Allsvenskan players Östers IF players IFK Göteborg players Lenhovda IF players Sweden men's under-21 international footballers Sweden men's international footballers Swedish football managers Östers IF managers 20th-century Swedish sportsmen People from Vimmerby Municipality