Erik Staffan Olsson (born 26 March 1964) is a Swedish

handball Handball (also known as team handball, European handball, Olympic handball or indoor handball) is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outcourt players and a goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands with the aim of thr ...

coach and former player. Olsson, who always played with no 13, was a left-handed right backcourt player with one of the most feared shots of all the elite players. Later in his career he won praise for his great playmaking skills. He was inducted into the EHF Hall of Fame in 2024. From September 2022 he is the head coach of the Netherlands' men’s national team.

Player career

Olsson was born in

Uppsala Uppsala ( ; ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the capital of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019. Loc ...

. He started his career, at the age of 10, in the Swedish team Skånela. Other clubs are Huttenberg, Niederwurzbach, HK Cliff,

THW Kiel THW Kiel is a professional handball club from Kiel, Germany. Currently, they compete in the Handball-Bundesliga and are the record champion with 23 titles. 2007 and 2012 were the most successful years in the club's history, as THW completed t ...

and Hammarby. He played 358 caps (852 goals) with the Sweden men's national handball team. After a long career in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, he returned to Sweden and played his final season in Hammarby Handball, a club he later coached to three consecutive national championships.

Olympics

In 1988 he was a member of the Swedish handball team which finished fifth in the Olympic tournament. He played all six matches and scored 16 goals. Four years later he was part of the Swedish team which won the silver medal. He played six matches and scored seven goals. At the 1996 Games he won his second silver medal with the Swedish team. He played five matches and scored seven goals. His last Olympic appearance was at the Sydney Games in 2000 when he won his third silver medal with the Swedish team. He played six matches and scored twelve goals.

Resume

* Caps/Goals: 357/852 goals (1984–2002) * World champion 1990 (in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

) and 1999 (in

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

) * European champion 1994, 1998, 2000 and 2002 * World champion runner up 1997 * 3rd place in the 1993 and 1995 World championships * German champion with

1998, 1999, 2000 and 2002 * Participated in four

Summer Olympics The Summer Olympic Games, also known as the Summer Olympics or the Games of the Olympiad, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The inaugural Games took place in 1896 in Athens, then part of the King ...

: Seoul (1988), Barcelona (1992), Atlanta (1996) and Athens (2000) * Swedish champion with Hammarby 2006, 2007 and 2008 (as coach)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Olsson, Staffan 1964 births Living people Sportspeople from Uppsala Swedish male handball players Swedish handball coaches Olympic handball players for Sweden Olympic silver medalists for Sweden Olympic medalists in handball Handball players at the 1988 Summer Olympics Handball players at the 1992 Summer Olympics Handball players at the 1996 Summer Olympics Handball players at the 2000 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 1992 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 1996 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 2000 Summer Olympics Swedish expatriate handball players in Germany Swedish expatriate handball players in Spain Liga ASOBAL players CB Ademar León players THW Kiel players Hammarby IF Handboll players Swedish expatriate sportspeople in West Germany Handball-Bundesliga players Handball coaches of international teams Swedish expatriate sportspeople in Portugal 20th-century Swedish sportsmen