Dear Denmark team,
The way you fight for this country on the soccer field makes me proud to be Danish. I don’t think I’ve seen so many people as happy and proud of our team as they are now.
I don’t think the Danes have been as excited about a tournament as we are about this one since we qualified for our first World Cup in 1986 (and wore that classic Hummel kit). And it is that this current team has made the country fall in love with football again. I know a lot of people who would never watch a football game, but when the national team plays, it’s literally all they talk about.
You are putting Denmark on the map, becoming the second team in the world for the enthusiasm with which you play every game. Every time I’m in another country and people find out I’m Danish, they immediately rave about the team.
The team really brings people together. I remember celebrating the fourth winning goal over Wales at Euro 2020 with a guy working behind a counter. We jumped around the store and hugged like old friends, despite never having met before!
However, that unity and friendship is not only found in good and celebratory moments, but also in bad.
After the loss to Croatia in the penalty shootout of the last World Cup in Russia, while I was standing in the middle of the Roskilde Festival, distraught and staring into space, a woman approached me and gave me a hug to comfort me. She just approached me, she hugged me as a sign of consolation for the elimination from the World Cup, she asked me if she was okay and left. I have never seen her before and I will never see her again. It shows how the team can bring people together, even for a moment, through good times and bad.
When you play, all the people of Denmark are one.
It doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor, tall or short, or the color of your skin.
All the world is one when you are in the field. That is the power you have. And I’m looking forward to experiencing that unity again during the 2022 World Cup.
#Faces #Football #Denmark #Letter #national #team
