A moment with...Magnus Jernemyr

It’s Denmark, it’s the EHF EURO and I meet with Magnus Jernemyr. He’s kind of like the guy who got away. I had met him in the quarter-final match against Atletico Madrid in last season’s VELUX EHF Champions League and had a chat with him about the possibility of that being his final year with Barca. I met him again at the FINAL4 and had a coffee. He hinted that he was finishing with FCB, but nothing more.

During the summer, he left and I thought a great chance for “A Moment with ...” had gone with him. Luckily for me, I met up with him again in his hotel room in Aarhus. Sjöstrand has a nap on the bed while we have an in-depth conversation.

“We took Silver”

He has great memories of the Olympic Games in London. The crowds were amazing; the atmosphere was incredible, but no-one in Sweden thought for a moment that a medal was possible. He explains that they had lost to Montenegro (in World Championship qualifiers) only two weeks before the first Sweden training camp for the Olympics. He asked Johan, while driving to Stockholm what they were doing. Were they wasting their entire summer for an impossible dream? He admits they were at the bottom and had no-where else to go. Where they went was London, what they got was a silver medal. “It’s something you will remember for the rest of your life,” he says.

“My God, what am I doing here?”

You get the sense that Magnus has felt he has been at the bottom before. He is an incredible fighter. His first club, Redbergslids IK, held the likes of Lovgren and Vranjes among its ranks as he walked in as a 17-year-old. Training was amazing and the man we know as a defence specialist was a jump shooter, left back position.

“I was really good”

A neck injury threatened to curtail a promising career, but the chance to try defence came along as an option and there he has remained. As we joke about how he looks so uncomfortable with ball in hand now, he reminisces that he hasn’t joined an attack since 2004. His eyes get that faraway look as he ponders the length of time he has been in handball. “The ball burns my hands now,” he quips.

“I don’t like to look on things as mistakes”

A move to Denmark, to GOG, from Torrevieja in Spain, was a disaster he says. He didn’t like it there. He spent 10 months playing with the team. However, after two matches against FCB, the Catalan giants came calling. He and Mikkel Hansen left at the same time. We get to chatting about why it didn’t work out for the young Dane.

“Handball wasn’t the problem”

He admits that Hansen was probably just too young at the time. Barcelona is a tough city to move to, if you don’t know where you are in your life. When along came Rutenka, there was just no space for Hansen anymore. Rutenka is one of Magnus’ best friends from that team. “He has a heart bigger than a cow”. Magnus shares the downs of the 2010 giveaway to Kiel and then relives the glory of 2011. It’s worth a listen as he explains how that win over Ciudad Real was the catalyst for the winning mentality that Barcelona then had over their rivals.

“Pascual made the team feel like a family”

Now that he has left Barca he says he can say whatever he wants. Forget about “Mes Que un Club”; It was Xavi Pascual instilled in them a sense of loyalty towards each other. He is not in any way insulting the club, but rather extolling the virtues of Pascual. In 2013, his neck injury flared up again and he spent all of January doing rehab in Sweden. He returned to give everything he could to his teammates and his coach. Even in tremendous pain he fought for his place, for his time on the court. It was to be his last season, but he gave his all. “I know Pasci loves me for that”. They won the league and lost in the final in Cologne.

“I decided to move back to Sweden”

The circle is complete, as happens with most players. He wants to be near his 4-year-old daughter, he wants to give back to Swedish handball. Now the fighter has returned as the old head, but he still demands of himself and does not take his place as a given. The young players look up to him as he once did with Lovgren etc. He has a role within the team as well. He is the guy to explain defence and what better man could you find. He explains that even though they are professionals, they ask him questions, but he is adamant that he is still, basically, a team member.

Horses for courses

He loves horses. He respects them. His friend has a ranch with 200 horses and he spends most of his free time there. He sees possibilities, in which, the ways he trained, can be used for horses. “They are built like us”. Perhaps they are built like Magnus, a man-mountain. But he sees perhaps a time after handball whereby he will be more involved in the training of these animals. He has some input and he listens and learns a lot. He is not like Sjostrand, the man with the crystal ball when it comes to backing winners in horse races. He calls him “Rain Man”. Johan wins a lot, often. He just drives horses. “Ride”, I say. No, he actually drives them or whatever verb you’d like to use.

I have the utmost respect for Magnus. He was one of the few people when I started in handball who didn’t automatically say; “And what would you know about it”. He, in fact, took me under his wing and spoke to me as an equal, although obviously I wasn’t. He is a gentle giant, a horse of a man, a big unit and a gentleman. Time in his presence flies by, much too quickly. I can only say thank you to him for his great chats, information, advice and the odd coffee (which he always bought). I miss him as a friend on my trips in the Champions League and we miss him as a tough, no-nonsense defender on the court. His career in Lugi HF could take him to the EHFCup finals in Berlin. I hope we all see him there.

Listen to the entire interview between Tom and Magnus here.