page_title: Jari Litmanen
section_title: Later career
hierarchical_section_title: Jari Litmanen / Later career
caption_attribution_description: English: jari litmanen liverpool masters singapore national stadium 2017 aide iskandar nazri nasir
context_page_description: Jari Olavi Litmanen is a Finnish former footballer. He was the first-choice captain of the Finland national team between 1996 and 2008 in an international career that ran from 1989 to 2010.
  Litmanen is widely considered to be Finland's greatest football player of all time. He was chosen as the best Finnish player of the last 50 years by the Football Association of Finland in the UEFA Jubilee Awards in November 2003. He also finished 42nd in the 100 Greatest Finns voting in 2004. The Association of Football Statisticians' compendium of 'Greatest Ever Footballers' listed Litmanen as the 53rd best footballer ever.
  In Finland, he is often called "Litti", which dates from his early years, and is also known as "Kuningas".
  During his club career, Litmanen represented Reipas, HJK, MyPa and Lahti in Finland, and Ajax, Barcelona, Liverpool, Hansa Rostock and Malmö FF abroad. Once considered one of the best attacking midfielders in the world, he became the first Finnish footballing superstar while playing for Ajax in the mid-1990s, winning the Champions League in 1995, the peak year of his career.
context_section_description: In February 2011, the sports news programme Urheiluruutu of the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE interviewed two of Litmanen's former teammates about the possibility of his working for Ajax when he decides to end his playing career. Former Ajax captain Danny Blind said the following:
  Jari knows the door is always open for him as an assistant coach, as a youth coach, whatever in the club. We love Jari, and we know his qualities as a football player, but also as a coach, I think, so the door is always open for him.
  Michel Kreek of the Ajax Academy was equally positive about this possibility: 
  It would be great if Jari would return here in Ajax. We played together, Jari came to Ajax when I played in the first team, and we saw him become a world player, so if that kind of player are willing to come back to Amsterdam, to Ajax, and put some of their experience into Ajax Academy, it’s only a great help for us.
  He served as a TV pundit for YLE during Euro 1992, Euro 2012, World Cup 2014 and Euro 2016, and, during the latter, also wrote comment and analysis for the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat.
  Jari Litmanen has confirmed in his autobiography that his professional career is over. He played his last professional game in 2011.
caption: Litmanen playing in a friendly in 2017
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