| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Jacob Thaysen-Laursen | ||||||||||||||||
| Date of birth | (1971-10-06)6 October 1971 (age 54) | ||||||||||||||||
| Place of birth | Vejle, Denmark | ||||||||||||||||
| Position | Defender | ||||||||||||||||
| Senior career* | |||||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) | ||||||||||||||
| 1989–1992 | Vejle | 67 | (3) | ||||||||||||||
| 1992–1996 | Silkesborg | 125 | (8) | ||||||||||||||
| 1996–2000 | Derby County | 137 | (3) | ||||||||||||||
| 2000–2002 | Copenhagen | 45 | (3) | ||||||||||||||
| 2002 | Leicester City | 10 | (0) | ||||||||||||||
| 2002 | →Wolves (loan) | 0 | (0) | ||||||||||||||
| 2002 | →AGF (loan) | 5 | (0) | ||||||||||||||
| 2002–2003 | Rapid Wien | 8 | (0) | ||||||||||||||
| 2003–2004 | Vejle | 9 | (0) | ||||||||||||||
| 2004–2005 | Fredericia | 33 | (1) | ||||||||||||||
| Total | 439 | (17) | |||||||||||||||
| International career | |||||||||||||||||
| 1990 | Denmark U19 | 2 | (0) | ||||||||||||||
| 1990–1993 | Denmark U21 | 24 | (0) | ||||||||||||||
| 1995–1999 | Denmark | 25 | (0) | ||||||||||||||
Medal record
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| * Club domestic league appearances and goals | |||||||||||||||||
Jacob Thaysen-Laursen (born 6 October 1971) is a Danish former professionalfootballer who played as adefender.
Laursen most notably played for English clubDerby County and won theDanish Superliga championship withSilkesborg andCopenhagen. He gained 25caps for theDenmark national team, with whom he won the1995 King Fahd Cup and participated in the1996 European Championship and1998 FIFA World Cup tournaments.
Born inVejle, Laursen spent his childhood years playing forVejle Kammeraterne andVejle. He made his senior debut for VB in July 1989,[1] and was named 1989Danish U19 Player of the Year.[2] He played at VB until the club was suffered relegation to the secondaryDanish 1st Division in the summer 1992.[3] Laursen then moved toSilkesborg, where he was part of the team that won the 1994Danish Superliga championship.
In July 1996, Laursen moved abroad to play for English clubDerby County in atransfer deal worth £500,000.[4] He spent four seasons at Derby, where he played more than 100 games for the club.[4] While he did not win over the Danish public while playing for the national team, Laursen was selected asteam captain for Derby in a number of games, and was named "Player of the Year" in the1998–99 season.[5] One of his more memorable moments for the club was goal from a free-kick on 4 September 1996, he, from the edge of the penalty area, lashed the ball into the top corner, with great power and accuracy, to give Derby the lead againstAlex Ferguson'sManchester United team.[5]
In August 2000, Laursen moved back to Denmark to be closer to his children. He signed a contract withCopenhagen, moving to the club on afree transfer.[6] In his first year at Copenhagen, the club won the2000–01 Danish Superliga under managerRoy Hodgson.[7] Before the new season, Laursen criticized his Copenhagen teammates for a lack of professionalism, and he left the club in January 2002.[8] He moved back to England to play forLeicester City in January 2002, in a £400,000 transfer deal.[9] He played ten games for Leicester before his relationship with the club turned sour.
After two months at Leicester, he spent a month on loan with the English clubWolverhampton Wanderers,[10] before being loaned out toAGF in Denmark for the remainder of the2001-02 season.[11] He was loaned out to Greek clubPAOK for the entire 2002–03 season,[12] but eventually refused to play for the club.[13][14] In November 2002, Laursen was given a free transfer by Leicester, which was struggling financially, and he left the club.[15]
On 30 November 2002, he signed a contract with Austrian teamRapid Wien,[16] but he was dropped from the team in April 2003.[17] He moved back to Denmark to play on an amateur basis in September 2003, and enlisted at childhood club Vejle Boldklub in the second-tierDanish 1st Division.[18] Laursen signed a contract with division rivalsFredericia in July 2004,[19] and played with the club until he ended his career in September 2005.[20]
Laursen represented Denmark at the1992 Summer Olympics, where he played full-time in Denmark's three matches, before elimination.[2] After the Olympics, he went on to captain theDenmark under-21 national team. After winning the Danish championship with Silkeborg, he made hisDenmark senior national team debut in January 1995. He was selected for the1995 King Fahd Cup by Denmark national team managerRichard Møller Nielsen, and went on to play in every game of the tournament, which Denmark won.[21] He also played a single game for the Denmark national team at the 1996 European Championship.
He was a part of the Denmark national team at the 1998 FIFA World Cup, but was unimpressive in his single match participation at the tournament. In March 2000, he decided to end his national team career under national team managerBo Johansson. Laursen cited personal reasons, as well as the booing he received by Danish spectators when he came on as a substitute for his 25th national team game in November 1999.[22]
Silkeborg
Copenhagen
Denmark
Individual
Denmark squads | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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