Nils Nielsen

Nils Herbert Kromann Nielsen is a Greenlandic-Danish football manager he is the currently head coach of the football team|Japan women's national side].
Nielsen is best known for his tenure with the Denmark women's national football team from 2013 to 2017. He led the Danes to a runners-up finish at the UEFA [Women's Euro 2017]. Despite departing the team shortly after, Nielsen received acclaim for his work and finished runner-up in the The Best [FIFA Football Awards 2017|2017 The Best FIFA Women's Coach] award. He spent most of 2018 as the assistant manager of the China women's national under-20 football team, taking them to the 2018 FIFA U-20 [Women's World Cup]. He was also manager of the Switzerland women's national football team from 2018 to 2022.
On 12 December 2024, Nielsen was appointed as the new coach of the Japan women's national football team.

Biography

Both of Nielsen's parents were teachers, and as it was his father's wish to live and work in Greenland, Nielsen was born there. During his first years, he lived in a village of 25 inhabitants.
When he was five, his parents separated, and with his mother he moved back to Denmark while his father and his brother stayed in Maniitsoq. Born with a serious back problem, his doctor forbade him to play soccer.
To compensate for his weakness, he chose large amounts of muscular strength exercises, and played soccer anyway. During a game, he fell onto the side fence, and broke a vertebra. With great luck, he avoided a paraplegia. After that accident, he stopped playing, and later chose a career as a trainer and studied sports psychology.