When Swedish football fans hear the name Idrottsföreningen Kamraterna Göteborg everything goes quickly blue and white in their mind’s eyes. IFK Göteborg – the name is well known and not only in . IFK is a synonym for success. The Göteborg club enjoys a good reputation all over .

The club, who are able to use the legendary Gamla Ullevi Stadium (capacity: 18,000) as well as the larger Ullevi Stadium built in 1958 for the World Cup, has its club offices in Alfred Gärdes Väg in 41 655 Göteborg. It is the best address in Swedish football. Even foreign football fans know that IFK Göteborg is ’s Real Madrid. A club at the very top. A place where success has a home.

IFK – tradition and success. The club has belonged to the 1^st division for every one of the past 70 or so years. Though there’s two older clubs in Göteborg – Örgryte (1887) and GAIS (1894) – IFK Göteborg, which was established on 4 August 1904, is the most successful.

Spread across the club’s letterhead are 17 championship titles – 1908, 1910, 1918, 1935, 1942, 1958, 1969, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1987, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994, 1995 and 1996. Plus four cup wins and four league cup wins. Of special pride are the two UEFA Cup wins in 1982 and 1987.

The win in the 1982 UEFA Cup final against Hamburg SV contained three goals scored by the legendary Torbjörn Nilsson. Top stars like Johnny Ekström, Gunnar Gren, Björn Nordquist, Thomas Ravelli – the goalkeeper is ’s most capped player having appeared in 143 internationals – and Thorbjörn Nilsson are associated with IFK Göteborg by lots of fans both at home and abroad.

In the 90’s, the club won the championship on six occasions but then in 1998 a crisis set. The club from southern then endured a lean period, from which the capital  profited.

The club was and is a reliable supplier of players to the Swedish national team which in turn serves ’s top clubs when they are searching for technically excellent footballers. In addition to the players, the club also stands for prominent football coaches such as star coach Sven-Göran Eriksson (English national team manager), Bengtsson, Gustafsson (5 titles), Johansson or Kindvall. In charge of IFK at the start of 2006 was Arne Erlandsen, who was previously Lilleström’s head coach for seven years. The former Norwegian international is the first foreign IFK coach since Austrian Pepi Stroh left Göteborg in 1960.

The club’s aim is to take on a starring role again as soon as possible. Since 1998 the team has been gradually working its way up the league (8^th, 6^th, 4^th and 4^th). But 2002 ended disappointingly for IFK fans. Finishing twelfth was their lowest position ever in the championship. Additionally, the team was knocked out of the UEFA Cup by a club from . Göteborg only just staved off the drop to the second division by beating Västra Frölunda Göteborg (1:1, 2:0) in the relegation play-offs.

IFK came seventh in 2003. A dramatic improvement followed a year later. Whilst Malmö FF took the title for the fifteenth time, Göteborg (47 points) landed up in the bronze medal position behind Malmö (52 points) and Halmstad (50). IFK were again able to play in the UEFA Cup. It was the 24^th appearance in a European competition for the Swedish record championship winners. holders. On the penultimate day of the season in a match labelled the “final”, Göteborg lost 3-2 in the Ullevi Stadium to Malmö, the eventual champions. IFK ended up third. The defeat in the cup final against Djurgarden (3-1) was also painful.

That IFK Göteborg is back on the road to the top was something they proved in 2005: finishing behind champions Djurgarden Stockholm (53 points), the blue and whites were runners-up ahead of (43). In the UEFA Intertoto Cup, the team was knocked out by the German side in the third round after two 2-0 defeats and thus failed to qualify for the UEFA Cup competition. But the confidence that they, nationally and internationally, can soon play a starring role again is high amongst club officials under President Bengt Halse. For the youth academy is renowned for the numerous talented players they regularly produce.