Torkil Nielsen
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Torkil Nielsen | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Born | 26 January 1964 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Country | Faroe Islands | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Peak rating | 2205 (January 1983) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Torkil Nielsen (Faroese pronunciation: [ˈtʰɔɹ̥tʃɪl ˈnɪlsɛn], born 26 January 1964) is a Faroese former football midfielder. He is also one of the Faroe Islands' best chess players.
He played most of his career at SÍF Sandavágur and after they merged with MB Miðvágur he played with the club which was a result of the merger, FS Vágar. He was an active football player until 1997, after that he just played a few matches and played his last match in 2007, just before the club was re-established into 07 Vestur after a merger between FS Vágar 2004 and SÍ Sørvágur.
International career
Nielsen played in an August 1988 friendly match against Iceland, the country's first FIFA-recognized match. He scored the very first Faroese goal after FIFA recognition, in a game, which also turned out to be the first ever official victory for the Faroe Islands, winning 1–0 in a friendly over Canada in April 1989.
Torkil claimed his place in world football history for his goal in the 1992 European championship qualifying shock 1–0 defeat of Austria in September 1990, which also was the Faroe Islands' first competitive match. His final match was a June 1993 World Cup qualifying match against Czechoslovakia. He earned 18 caps, scoring 2 goals.[1]
International goals
- Scores and results list Faroe Islands' goal tally first.
| # | Date | Venue | Opponent | Score | Result | Competition |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 14 April 1989 | Gundadalur, Tórshavn, Faroe Islands |  Canada | 1-0 | 1-0 | Friendly |
| 2 | 12 September 1990 | Idrottsparken, Landskrona, Sweden |  Austria | 1-0 | 1-0 | Euro 1992 Qualifying |
Chess career
During and after his football career, Torkil Nielsen plays chess with the club Sandavágs talvfelag.[2][3] He was a three-time individual champion of the Faroes in 1984, 1986 and 1988; and participated three times in the Chess Olympiad as a member of Faroese chess national team - in 1982 in Lucerne, Switzerland, and in 1984 and 1988 in Thessaloniki, Greece.
