Lasse Vibe (born 22 February 1987) is a Danish former professional footballer who played as a forward or winger. After beginning his career in his native Denmark, he came to prominence in Sweden with IFK Göteborg and has also played in England and China. Vibe was a Denmark international and captained the 2016 Denmark Olympic team.
Club career
AGF
Vibe began his career in his native Denmark with local club AIA-Tranberg, before moving to AGF in 2001. He returned to AIA-Tranberg for a spell in 2003, before returning to AGF the following year. He progressed through AGF's youth system to become captain of the youth team and on 8 August 2005 it was reported that he had signed a two-year professional contract. A persistent knee injury hindered Vibe's progression from the youth to the reserve team during the 2005–06 Danmarksserien season. After a successful recovery, he made his professional debut on the final day of the 2006–07 1. division season in a 3–1 defeat to Hobro IK, though the result was irrelevant as promotion to the Superliga was already secured. On 28 June 2007, Vibe signed a new two-year contract.
Vibe failed to feature for the first team during the 2007–08 season and had to wait until 23 August 2008 to make his next appearance, which came in a DBU Pokalen second round match versus Viby IF. He came on as a 54th-minute substitute and scored his first goal for the club two minutes later, before adding another in injury time to cap an 8–0 win. Vibe departed the club in December 2008, with sporting director Brian Steen Nielsen admitting that he needed to move on for the sake of his career.
FC Fyn
In December 2008, Vibe signed a contract with 2. division West club FC Fyn, effective from 1 January 2009. He hit the ground running, scoring seven goals in 13 games in the second half of the 2008–09 season and he won the first silverware of his career when Fyn won the division title, which sealed promotion to the 1. division. Vibe began his first full season of first team football as a regular, but ended the 2009–10 campaign with just seven goals from 31 appearances as Fyn finished safely in mid-table. He departed the club after the season and scored 14 goals in 44 appearances during 18 months at the Odense Atletikstadion.
FC Vestsjælland
In February 2010, it was reported that Vibe had signed a contract with 1. division club FC Vestsjælland, effective 1 July 2010. He scored 12 goals in 29 appearances during his debut season, in which the Vikings finished in mid-table. He scored six goals in 15 games in the first half of the 2011–12 season before departing the club in December 2011.
SønderjyskE
In December 2011, Vibe moved up to the Superliga to sign a two-year contract with SønderjyskE, effective 1 January 2012. He had to wait until March 2012 to make his debut and played the opening 66 minutes of a 1–0 defeat to Brøndby IF, before being substituted for Bjørn Paulsen. He came into form in mid-April and scored five goals in a six-match spell. He finished the 2011–12 season with six goals from 15 appearances. Vibe made 34 appearances and scored 13 goals during the 2012–13 season (scoring eight of those goals in the space of 11 matches) and departed the club in June 2013, despite having signed a new year contract in December 2012. Vibe made 49 appearances and scored 19 goals during 18 months at the Haderslev Fodboldstadion.
IFK Göteborg
Vibe moved to Sweden to sign for Allsvenskan club IFK Göteborg in June 2013. He scored his first goal for the club in a 4–0 Svenska Cupen second round win over Lunds BK on 22 August. He was denied his first Swedish silverware after an injury time Guillermo Molins goal secured a 3–2 victory for Malmö FF in the 2013 Svenska Supercupen. Vibe finished the 2013 season with 18 appearances, four goals and helped Göteborg to third place in the table and qualification for the Europa League.
Vibe was in prolific goalscoring form during the 2014 season, scoring 29 goals in 36 appearances and finished the season as the Allsvenskan's top scorer. He was nominated for the 2014 Danish Player of the Year award, but lost to Tottenham Hotspur's Christian Eriksen. Vibe scored 13 goals in 23 appearances during the opening five months of the 2015 season and scored 7 goals during Göteborg's victorious 2014–15 Svenska Cupen campaign, which included the opening goal in a 2–1 win over Örebro SK in the final on 17 May 2015. He left the club on 24 July 2015, after having scored 46 goals in 77 appearances for the Angels.