Portrait
Pia Sundhage
Footballer and coachSweden

Pia Sundhage

Sweden’s record goalscorer led the US women’s team to two Olympic golds – and was named FIFA World Coach of the Year as an openly lesbian coach.

Pia Sundhage grew up in western Sweden and made her debut for the Swedish national team in 1975, aged 15. As a forward she scored 71 goals in 146 internationals, for a long time a national record. In 1984 she won the first European Championship with Sweden and was the tournament’s top scorer. In 1988 her picture appeared on a Swedish postage stamp, and in 1989 she scored the first goal in a women’s match at Wembley Stadium.

After her playing career she became a coach. In 2003 she won the US league title with the Boston Breakers. From 2008 to 2012 she coached the United States women’s national team and led it to Olympic gold in Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012 and to the final of the 2011 World Cup. In 2012 FIFA named her World Coach of the Year. Sundhage was known for her warmth and for occasionally bursting into song in front of her players and the press.

She then coached Sweden, winning Olympic silver in 2016, and from 2019 to 2023 Brazil, as the first foreigner in the job. She later coached Switzerland at the home European Championship in 2025 and in 2026 took over the Haitian national team.

In 2010 she said in a Swedish television interview that she was a lesbian and had never experienced homophobia as a coach: “There has been no problem for me to be openly gay as head coach in the U.S.” She is one of the most prominent openly lesbian figures in world football.

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