43 Facts About Jari Litmanen

Jari Olavi Litmanen is a Finnish former footballer.

Jari Litmanen was the first-choice captain of the Finland national team between 1996 and 2008 in an international career that ran from 1989 to 2010.

Jari Litmanen was chosen as the best Finnish player of the last 50 years by the Football Association of Finland in the UEFA Jubilee Awards in November 2003.

Jari Litmanen finished 42nd in the 100 Greatest Finns voting in 2004.

Jari Litmanen made his first-team debut for Reipas in Finland's then top division Mestaruussarja at the age of 16 in 1987.

Jari Litmanen's transfer took place during the same summer, and he did not complete the Finnish football season with MyPa.

Jari Litmanen is not a man who will raise his voice, or bang with his fist on the table and say, 'We do it this way'.

Van Gaal liked what he saw, and knowing that Bergkamp was about to leave for Inter, he announced that Jari Litmanen would be Bergkamp's successor, something that people in Jari Litmanen's native Finland found difficult to believe.

Jari Litmanen was voted Footballer of the Year in the Netherlands in 1993.

Jari Litmanen was one of the star players of Van Gaal's team that won three consecutive Dutch championships and reached the UEFA Champions League final twice in a row.

Jari Litmanen spent seven years in Amsterdam, winning four Dutch championships and three KNVB Cups, and scored a total of 129 goals, 91 of them in the league.

Jari Litmanen is the club's top scorer in European competition with 26 goals in 54 matches.

Jari Litmanen has the honour of being one of just three players presented in a special video featurette at the Ajax Museum.

In 1999, Jari Litmanen was reunited with Louis van Gaal at Barcelona, one of several former Ajax players recruited by Van Gaal in his time as manager.

Jari Litmanen failed to adapt to his new conditions, and he was one of the players dropped by Van Gaal that winter.

Jari Litmanen, for example, was a different player at Barca than he was at Ajax.

Jari Litmanen made a good start at Liverpool but broke his wrist playing for Finland against England at Anfield in late March 2001 and missed the rest of the season.

Jari Litmanen decided to return to Ajax, and was given a hero's welcome with the crowd again singing his name.

Jari Litmanen moved to German Bundesliga strugglers Hansa Rostock in January 2005, but he was unable to prevent them being relegated, which ended his stint at the club.

Jari Litmanen joined the Swedish club Malmo FF in July 2005 in an attempt to help them qualify for the Champions League.

Jari Litmanen decided to continue his career with Malmo in 2006 but was again sidelined with a number of injuries for much of the season.

In January 2008, Jari Litmanen received a ten-day trial invitation from Fulham under former Finland manager Roy Hodgson, and was signed on 31 January 2008 together with fellow countryman Toni Kallio.

Just weeks after signing with Fulham, Jari Litmanen had to return to his native Finland to rest, after serious heart concerns.

Jari Litmanen eventually made his debut for Fulham in a reserve-team match against Tottenham on 31 March 2008, but he was released in May of the same year without playing a single game for the first team.

On 8 August 2008, it was announced that Jari Litmanen would join his former club Lahti of the Finnish Premier Division for the remainder of the 2008 season.

Jari Litmanen played an important role in helping Lahti to finish third in the league and qualify for Europe for the first time in the club's history.

Jari Litmanen signed a new one-year contract with Lahti on 16 April 2009.

On 20 April 2011, Jari Litmanen signed a one-year contract with the reigning Finnish champions HJK at age 40, making him one of the few footballers to play at professional level in four different decades.

Jari Litmanen is Finland's most capped player and was Finland's leading goalscorer until 12 October 2021, when Teemu Pukki broke the record with two goals against Kazakhstan in a World Cup qualifier.

Jari Litmanen made his Finland debut on 22 October 1989 against Trinidad and Tobago, and scored his first goal on 16 May 1991 against Malta.

Jari Litmanen served as Finland's captain from 1996 to 2008, and was arguably their key player for more than a decade, helping the team to many unexpected victories against higher ranked opposition.

Jari Litmanen earned his 100th cap on 25 January 2006 against South Korea, one of only four Finns to have reached such a milestone, the others being Ari Hjelm, Sami Hyypia and Jonatan Johansson.

When he played for Finland against South Korea on 19 January 2010, Jari Litmanen became one of a handful of male players to represent a national team in four different decades, a feat matched by Andorra's Ildefons Lima in June 2021.

Jari Litmanen knows the door is always open for him as an assistant coach, as a youth coach, whatever in the club.

We played together, Jari Litmanen came to Ajax when I played in the first team, and we saw him become a world player, so if that kind of player are willing to come back to Amsterdam, to Ajax, and put some of their experience into Ajax Academy, it's only a great help for us.

Jari Litmanen served as a TV pundit for YLE during Euro 1992, Euro 2012, World Cup 2014 and Euro 2016, and, during the latter, wrote comment and analysis for the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat.

Jari Litmanen has confirmed in his autobiography that his professional career is over.

Jari Litmanen's father, Olavi Litmanen, was a Finnish international and a Reipas player.

Jari Litmanen's mother played for Reipas at the women's highest level.

Jari Litmanen became a father in November 2005 when his Estonian girlfriend Ly Jurgenson gave birth to a son named Caro.

On 10 October 2010, Jari Litmanen became the first Finnish team sport player to be honoured with a statue: it stands at Kisapuisto where he started his career in the 1970s.

On 11 May 2020, Jari Litmanen said to Unibet that his coronavirus test was positive, and he had been recovering for four weeks.

Jari Litmanen said of this time that "I've probably never been in such bad shape".