AC Milan did not win the Italian championship between between 1907 and 1951. During the 1950s, they won it four times. Nils Liedholm was at the centre of this revival after he joined the club in 1949. Elegant and technically skilled, Liedholm was one of the top players of his era. He captained the Sweden team which reached the World Cup final on home soil in 1958, losing to Brazil in a classic match, and later became an innovative and successful Serie A coach.

Liedholm was born in Valdemarsvik, southern Sweden, where his talent was clear from an early age and he played for the local club from the age of 16. He joined the Swedish seconddivision side IK Sleipner in 1943, playing for them for three years and making his mark as a dynamic inside left.

In 1946 he transferred to local rivals IFK Norrköping, where he first played with the prolific striker Gunnar Nordahl, winning two championships. Liedholm came to international attention playing on the left wing as part of the Sweden team which won Gold at the 1948 London Olympics, beating Yugoslavia 3-1 at Wembley.

He was off to Milan the next year, where he soon teamed up with Nordahl and Gunnar Gren. The three Swedes, collectively known as “Gre-No-Li”, became the axis of the Milan team over the next decade. They won the “Scudetto” in 1951, 1955, 1957 and 1959 and the Latin Cup, an international club tournament, in 1951 and 1956.

In 1958 Milan reached the final of the recently established European Cup, losing to an all-conquering Real Madrid side in injury time. In the semi-final they had beaten Manchester United, a team decimated by the Munich air disaster that February.

Liedholm captained Milan for much of this time, and scored 81 goals for the club. He was an upright, controlled player, who seemed to keep the ball magnetically close to his feet and refused to be hurried by defenders. His clever distribution was the heartbeat of the team — Milan folklore has it that he did not misplace a pass for his first two years in the side, and won an ovation when he finally gave away the ball. He prided himself on peak fitness, and his training regime sometimes included the javelin and shot put.

Liedholm made only 23 international appearances, as for many years the Sweden team did not select professionals, and he missed the 1950 and 1954 world cups. But the summer of 1958 provided a suitable high-point for his career as, aged nearly 36, he led Sweden to the final of the World Cup tournament in their own country.

Sweden's English coach, George Raynor, admitted that his side were “the slowest team in the competition”, but he had assembled a guileful set of players who disposed of Hungary and the holders, West Germany, to reach the final. Before the game Raynor said: “If Brazil give away an early goal, they'll panic all over the show.”

And, after only four minutes, Brazil did fall behind. Liedholm himself scored the goal, capping a slick move by beating two men to reach the penalty area and shooting home low. But Sweden, as The Times had it, found themselves “finally bewildered by a brand of football craft beyond the understanding of many”. Brazil came back to win 5-2 through the inspiration of Garrincha and two goals from the 17-year-old Pelé.

Liedholm retired in 1961 and was offered a coaching role at Milan. In 1964 he was appointed manager, but this first spell in charge was short-lived. He took charge of Serie B clubs Verona and Varese, winning promotion with both, before joining Fiorentina in 1971. Two years later he took over at Roma for the first time and spent the rest of his career shuttling between them and Milan. In 1977 he returned to Milan, winning the club's 10th title in 1979.

He then rejoined Roma, where he won the championship in 1983, and the next year lost the European Cup final to Liverpool on penalties. That summer he returned to Milan and was replaced at Roma by Sven-Göran Eriksson. In this final spell at Milan, Liedholm coached Mark Hateley and Ray Wilkins, and gave the 16-year-old Paolo Maldini his debut. Liedholm the coach was known as a tactical innovator, who successfully deployed zonal marking as an alternative to the catenaccio system, which relied on man-marking and a sweeper.

He returned again to Roma in the late 1980s but was sacked in 1989. Thereafter devoted himself mainly to his vineyard in Northern Italy, though he returned briefly to Roma as caretaker manager in 1997.

Nils Liedholm, footballer and manager, was born on October 8, 1922. He died on November 5, 2007, aged 85