Sjöstrand from Barcelona to Aalborg

After two seasons with FC Barcelona Swedish national team goalkeeper Johan Sjöstrand is leaving the record winner of the VELUX EHF Champions League to join Danish team Aalborg Håndbold with immediate effect.

Sjöstrand, 25, who played an important part in Sweden´s successful campaign to the Olympic silver medals in London this summer has been forming a brilliant goalkeeper couple together with Daniel Sarić in Barcelona over the past couple of years. However, as the Catalan side signed Spanish national team goalkeeper Arpad Sterbik from Atletico Madrid just before the start of the season, there was suddenly one top goalkeeper too many in Barcelona, and it was Sjöstrand who had to look for a new club.

Tuesday afternoon, he was introduced as a new keeper in Aalborg, where he is expected to form an extremely competent duo with Norwegian international Ole Erevik. “Aalborg have a strong team, and their ambitions match the wishes I have for my own handball career. The Danish league is very strong, and I find that we in Aalborg have a team who can compete for the medals. I know many of these players in advance, so there was no doubt in my mind, when I was approached by the club. Furthermore, I have been told that the atmosphere at the home games in the Gigantium Arena in Aalborg is fantastic,” said Sjöstrand who has played 56 internationals for Sweden so far.

Happy boss

“Johan Stjöstrand is a top keeper, and with him and Erevik we have a duo at the very highest level,” Aalborg Håndbold´s director Jan Larsen said, as Sjöstrand was officially introduced in the club.

“He is aggressive in his way of playing, he is extremely fast and he brings with him his experience from the strongest leagues in the world, the German and the Spanish, as well as from the Swedish national team,” Larsen added.

Before joining Barcelona, Sjöstrand played two years in SG Flensburg-Handewitt in the German Bundesliga.