Magdalena Eriksson


Magdalena Lilly Eriksson is a Swedish footballer who plays as a defender for Chelsea Women in the English Women's Super League as well as for the Swedish national team. A left and centre-back, she used to play for Hammarby IF, Djurgårdens IF and Linköpings FC in the Swedish Damallsvenskan.

Club career

Eriksson began her football career with local team Enskede IK, but was encouraged by her father to join Hammarby IF DFF in order to improve her game. Aged 17, she broke into Hammarby's first team in the 2011 Damallsvenskan season and made her debut against Umeå IK.
In November 2011, Eriksson left relegated Hammarby for their Stockholm rivals Djurgården. After scoring one goal in 19 appearances in the 2012 Damallsvenskan, she left Djurgårdens, who were facing relegation, for Linköpings FC.
In July 2017, after almost 5 years with Linköpings FC, she signed a two-year contract with Women's Super League team Chelsea FC Women. On 20 August 2018, she extended her contract until 2021. On 6 September 2019, Chelsea announced that Eriksson would be the new captain.

International career

As a Swedish under-19 international, Eriksson was part of the victorious squad at the 2012 U-19 European Championship. In November 2013, national team coach Pia Sundhage called up Eriksson to a senior squad training camp at Bosön. Eriksson made her debut for the senior Sweden team in a 3–0 friendly defeat by France in Amiens on 8 February 2014. In early 2014, she had a knee injury after colliding with her own goalkeeper, which left her injured for three months. She was part of the Swedish squad that won silver at the 2016 Summer Olympics. In July 2017, Pia Sundhage named Eriksson to Sweden's UEFA Women's Euro 2017 squad.

Honours

;Chelsea FC Women
;Linköpings FC
;Sweden
;Sweden U19
As a young player at Hammarby, Eriksson's pre-match ritual included listening to "Heroes". Since May 2014, Eriksson has been in a relationship with former Linköpings FC teammate and Danish international, Pernille Harder.
During her upbringing, she assumed her last name was spelled with a C because that was how her father spelled it. It wasn't until she was 17 and looked in her passport that she realised it was actually spelled with a K. As such, her last name is often misspelled as "Ericsson" rather than the correct "Eriksson".
Eriksson has a Bachelor's degree in Political science and is currently taking a course in Feminist Theory and Intersectional Power Analysis.