Ended – now Mikael Aggefors plays in the world’s best team

Retired goalkeeper about the unlikely turnaround

Mikael Aggefors had not played handball for almost a year.

Then the world’s best team called.

– A bit surreal, says the ex-national team goalkeeper ahead of tonight’s Champions League quarter-final with Magdeburg.

Goalkeeper coach Mikael Aggefors was sitting and depressing in Alingsås HK’s bus on the way home from Ystad on a late Wednesday evening two weeks ago. AHK had gone out of the playoffs after an odd-goal loss against Ystads IF.

Then he received a text message.

It was Bennet Wiegert, coach of SC Magdeburg – the reigning Champions League champions and the best team in the world right now. The club had found itself in an acute predicament since the team’s first goalkeeper Nikola Portner was caught in a doping test and this late in the season, handball teams can only sign players who did not play at all during the season.

Aggefors had not, who put the suspensor on the shelf last spring when he ended his career in Ålborg, Denmark, moved home to Alingsås and went back to work as a full-time system developer. Parallel to his civilian job, he had helped AHK as a goalkeeper coach, but really only at the home games and some training.

The spontaneous answer: no

Now Magdeburg wanted the 39-year-old down immediately. The German Final 4, i.e. the final game in the cup, was already waiting the same weekend.

– The spontaneous answer was no. I was just about to change jobs and there were a lot of practical things to think about with the family and such. But when I thought about it a bit, Magdeburg is a pretty good handball team with many players, not least Swedes, whom I’ve known for a long time. Then it was fun to jump on, he says.

Aggefors and Wiegert were spoken to on Thursday morning, on Friday he was presented as Magdeburg’s sensational new signing and on Saturday he sat on the bench in the cup semi-final in the Lanxess Arena in Cologne in front of 19,750 spectators.

1.5 weeks later, when Sportbladet reaches Aggefors, he has become German cup champion, debuted in the Bundesliga in the summit away to Flensburg, moved up to the league lead with Magdeburg and is now charging for the first quarter-final meeting with Kielce tonight in Poland with a return in a week on home ground.

– The first five games are not small games, in a sense the most important of the season.

Just ran and did a little gym

Aggefors, who has never played in the Bundesliga but has played in the Champions League final with Ålborg and the World Cup final with Sweden, can thus, one year after he retired as a goalkeeper, take part in the most difficult treble in the handball world with Magdeburg in just a couple months: the cup (finished), the league and the Champions League.

– It’s a bit surreal. Also, I don’t have the biggest role and won’t brag about it on my resume if it comes to that. But it’s fun to experience.

No, in the first three matches, efforts have been limited to going in and standing on a penalty in the league match against Flensburg. The team’s other goalkeeper, Sergej Hernandez, has done really well.

– I have a small role. The hope is that I won’t play so much.

How much have you kept going this season?

– In terms of goalkeeping, nothing more than that I threw a few balls as a goalkeeping coach in AHK. I’ve only been running and working out to keep my body in shape, not to save balls at this level.

How is the form – after all, you have had time for some training sessions with Magdeburg?

– It felt in the body that you had been gone for a while. But the muscle memory remained. This thing about standing in the goal, catching balls and reading the game was closer than I thought it would be, says Aggefors.