Marcus Berg

In his first Bundesliga game for Hamburg, playing at home against Borussia Dortmund, Berg scored his first goal for the club in the 72nd minute, just 182 seconds after coming off the bench, a record in the club's history.

Despite the promising start, his debut season in the Bundesliga would not become a success, with Berg only scoring three additional goals in 30 appearances.

Bengt Erik Markus Berg (born 17 August 1986) is a Swedish former professional footballer who played as a striker.

Beginning his footballing career in Sweden with IFK Göteborg in the early 2000s, Berg went on to play professionally in the Netherlands, Germany, Greece, the United Arab Emirates, and Russia before returning to IFK Göteborg in 2021.

After spending two years in the youth team, during the 2005 season Berg was promoted to the regular squad and played for IFK Göteborg in the Allsvenskan.

During the time playing for IFK Göteborg, he played alongside his older brother Jonatan.

Berg played for IFK Göteborg until the 2007 summer and put forth an attracting performance throughout his final season, as he maintained a high scoring efficiency throughout the league matches.

Göteborg won the league that season and Berg received a standing ovation upon leaving the field after the 5–0 away victory over Kalmar FF where Berg scored, which was his last for the club because of his suspension for the game against Djurgårdens IF.

Among dedicated IFK Göteborg supporters, Berg is known as Svarte-Marcus ("Black Marcus") due to his many goals in the Göteborg youth and reserve teams, and later also senior team.

The nickname is an homage to the legendary IFK Göteborg striker Filip "Svarte-Filip" Johansson.

On 10 August 2007, Dutch club FC Groningen signed Berg for a reported £2.5 million to replace the departing Ajax-bound Luis Suárez.

Berg had a good debut season in the Netherlands.

Although he was not the top scorer in the Eredivisie in 2007–08, he scored 18 goals for Groningen, helping the Dutch outfit to a seventh-place finish.

A full international between 2008 and 2021, Berg won 90 caps and scored 24 goals for the Sweden national team.

In the 2008–09 season, Groningen remained top of the Eredivisie table after five games played.

Berg had a good display as well.

He managed to score 13 goals in 15 matches.

He also scored four goals in a December game against Roda JC.

On 17 July 2009, German Bundesliga side Hamburger SV confirmed that Berg had signed a five-year contract with the club.

The official FC Groningen website mentioned it was a record fee paid for a Groningen player.

Dagblad van het Noorden, a Dutch newspaper, stated that Berg swapped clubs for €10.5 million.

The contract also mentioned that a friendly match will be played between Groningen and Hamburg in the summer of 2010 or 2011 in the Euroborg, the main stadium of Groningen.

Although initially the fee of €9.5 million was too high for Hamburg, Berg's desire of moving to the Bundesliga persuaded Groningen to complete the transfer.

On 17 July 2010, PSV and Hamburg agreed to a season-long loan deal for Berg.

After returning from his loan spell at PSV, Berg only made 13 appearances the 2011–12 Bundesliga due to injuries and continued lack of form, scoring once.

On 9 November 2012, Hamburger SV athletic supervisor Frank Arnesen stated that the club had to sell five players to raise funds after having invested heavily in new players in the previous summer, including Dutch star Rafael van der Vaart; one of these five players was said to be Berg.

After these news, Berg was linked with a return to his former club IFK Göteborg.

On 4 July 2013, it was revealed that Berg had travelled to Athens in order to sign with Panathinaikos.

On 8 July 2013, Panathinaikos announced that Berg had signed a four-year contract with the club.

On 18 August 2013, in his debut appearance, Berg scored his first goal with Panathinaikos, as his team won the game against Panetolikos.

On the first derby of the year against PAOK, Berg scored Panathinaikos' goal and lost a penalty, as his team lost with a score of 2–1.

On 2 March 2014, Berg was the MVP in the 3–0 away victory against Olympiacos with one goal and one assist for Danijel Pranjić.

This was the biggest away victory in the history of the Eternal Rivals.

The following week, he scored a hat-trick when Panathinaikos defeated Aris 4–1 at home.

On 26 April 2014, in the Greek Cup final against rivals PAOK, Berg scored a hat-trick to lead Panathinaikos to a 4–1 victory, who won the Greek Cup as they had done in 2010.

On 11 January 2015, Berg scored his second hat-trick in a 5–0 home win against Ergotelis in the Superleague Greece.

On 26 January 2015, he signed a one-year extension contract, until 2018.

On 8 March, in a Panathinaikos–PAOK derby, Berg scored his third hat-trick in a 4–3 home win.

On 30 March 2015, after two-and-a-half years, Berg scored his seventh international goal on friendly match against Iran.

He represented his country at UEFA Euro 2016, the 2018 FIFA World Cup, and UEFA Euro 2020.