Who are St Patricks Athletic Europa League opponents IFK Norrkoping of Sweden?

Following the proceedings for the Europa League draw, St Patrick’s Athletic have been drawn against IFK Norrkoping of Sweden. IFK Norrkoping play their football in the highest Swedish tier the Allsvenskan, where they sit 7th in the early stages of their new season.

IFK Norrkoping was founded on the 29th of May 1897, their nicknames include, Peking (Beijing), Kamraterna (The comrades) and VitaBlå (WhiteBlue). The club is based in Norrköping, a city in the province of Östergötland in eastern Sweden, which is situated less than two hours away from Stockholm, Norrköping, has a local airport with Stockholm being the nearest from Dublin Airport. The club is a part of the Östergötlands Fotbollförbund district and play their home games at the Östgötaporten or Nya Parken, which is a multipurpose stadium.

The stadium was built was built in the early 20th century. Construction of the stadium was an initiative of the city of Norrköping and it was to be used for various other sports besides football. The ground officially opened in 1903. The stadium has a capacity of just over 17,000 which also boasts an artificial playing surface. Östgötaporten is located just south-west of Norrköping’s city centre. The walk from the centre will take 10 to 15 minutes, whereas the walk from Norrköping’s train station, which lies north of the centre, takes about 20 minutes. Frequent trains connect Norrkoping with Stockholm. The journey takes about 70 minutes on the high-speed service and up to half an hour more on the slower services.

IFK Norrköping dominated Swedish football in the post war era and won the first division 11 times in 20 years, culminating in the league triumph of 1963. It took the club another 26 years before adding championship title number 13 to the trophy cabinet, which they done so in 2015. They have also won the second division Superettan once in 2017 along with recording seven Svenska Cupen wins and one Svenska Supercupen which are the Swedish versions of the FAI Cup and Presidents Cup respectively.

Despite domestic success, Norrköping have failed to get past the second round of qualifying for European competitions, their last European trip to the Island of Ireland came in the 1968/69 European Cup Winners' Cup, where they overcame Crusaders of Belfast 6-3 in the first round.

Jens Gustafsson is the current manager of Norrköping, having been in charge since 2016. The 40-year-old holds prior experience as a coach at Halmstads BK, Sweden U21’s and AIK, while Norrköping has been his first main managerial appointment.