SWEDISH football legend Kurt Hamrin has died aged 89.
The former Sweden international’s old club Fiorentina announced his passing in a statement offering their condolences on their official website on Sunday morning.
It read: “President Rocco Commisso, his family, the Fiorentina board and everyone associated with the club share the pain of Kurt Hamrim’s family and the entire footballing world for his passing.
“Hamrin was and always will be a legend for all football fans and especially for Fiorentina fans.
“He still holds the record for goals in the purple shirt along with [Gabriel] Batistuta.
“With the lily on his chest, he won a Cup Winners’ Cup and two Italian Cups and has inextricably linked his life to the city of Florence.”
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Another of Hamrin’s former clubs, Italian champions Juventus, issued their own statement after learning of the winger’s passing.
It read: “Kurt Hamrin, one of the highest-scoring foreigners who played in Italy, has left us at the age of 89.
“It was Juventus who brought the Swede, born in Stockholm on 19 November 1934, to Serie A.
“He spent only one season in Turin, which was very important for his career.
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“Afterwards, there were experiences in Padova, in Fiorentina (where he was Paolo Rossi’s idol as a child fan, declaring how much his way of playing influenced him), in Milan and in Napoli.”
The cause of Hamrin’s passing is currently unknown.
Hamrin was, up until his death, the last surviving player from the 1958 World Cup final between Sweden and Brazil.
His death came a month after Brazil‘s last survivor of the match Mario Zagallo passed away.
Hamrin began his professional career with AIK in 1952 before he joined Juve in 1957.
He would spend the bulk of his career in Italy, where he also had stints with AC Milan, Napoli and Padova.
The majority of the wideman’s career, however, was spent in Florence with Fiorentina, whom he scored 150 goals for in 269 appearances.
Hamrin bagged 190 Serie A goals during his time in Italy, a haul which sees him ninth above the likes of Alessandro Del Piero and Zlatan Ibrahimovic in Serie A’s all-time leading goalscorers list.
Hamrin made a total of 32 appearances for Sweden between 1953 and 1965, scoring 17 goals for his country.
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Three of those strikes came in the 1958 World Cup, where they played a Pele-inspired Brazil in the final.
Pele bagged a brace, as did the recently-deceased Zagallo, as the Samba Boys ran out 5-2 winners.
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Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
