Poul Nielsen

Niels Poul "Tist" Nielsen (December 25, 1891 – August 9, 1962) was a Danish amateur football player, who is the joint all-time leading goalscorer for the Danish national team with 52 goals in only 38 matches, averaging 1.37 goals per match, and won a silver medal with the Danish national team at the 1912 Summer Olympics. He played his entire club career as a forward for Kjøbenhavns Boldklub, with whom he won six Danish football championships.

The story goes that as a young boy Poul would sneak into football matches without paying, thus becoming a gratist ("free rider"), abbreviated to "Tist".

Biography

Born in Copenhagen, Nielsen started playing football with Kjøbenhavns Boldklub (KB), where he spent his entire senior career. He made his debut for the Danish national team on May 5, 1910, as the youngest Danish national team player at 18 years and 131 days of age, breaking Vilhelm Wolfhagen's age record from 1908. Nielsen's record would stand for eight years, until the 18 years and 51 days old Valdemar Laursen became the youngest Danish national team debutant.

He made his debut in a Danish national team that was playing its first game since winning silver medals at the 1908 Summer Olympics, and was included in the Danish squad for the 1912 Summer Olympics tournament. He played one game at the 1912 Summer Olympics, the 4–1 defeat of the Netherlands, where he scored his first national team goal in his third national team game. Denmark went on to successfully defend their Olympic silver medal, losing 2–4 to Great Britain in the final game, without Nielsen in the team.

After the 1912 Olympics, Nielsen started scoring goals for the Danish national team at a record-setting pace, while guiding KB to two Danish championships in a row in 1913 and 1914. He scored 22 goals in his first nine national team games after the 1912 Olympics, from May 1913 to June 1916, including six goals in a 10–0 win against Sweden and all four Danish goals in a 4–1 win against Germany. His tally in June 1916 was 23 goals in 12 national team games.

He was a part of the KB team that won the 1917, 1918, 1922 and 1925 Danish championships, while still scoring plenty of goals for the Danish national team. He ended his national team career in September 1925, having scored a total 52 goals in 38 matches, including 26 goals against Norway and 15 goals against Sweden. Although Nielsen played in the 1910s and 20s, the number of goals he scored for his country still stands as the national record. Because his career spanned the nascent years of international football, he never got a chance to play in the World Cup; his only appearance on the world stage was the 1912 Summer Olympics.

He died in Copenhagen in August 1962, aged 70.

Honours

• Danish championship: 1913, 1914, 1917, 1918, 1922, 1925

External links

• Danish national team profile
• (Danish) Haslund profile
• (Danish) Peders Fodboldstatistik profile