20 Years of blogging!

Time flies. 

Twenty years ago, on June 16th 2004, Facebook had just been founded but not become a global phenomenon. Twitter, Instagram, TikTok or WhatsApp did not exist yet. Lionel Messi had not played his first match for FC Barcelona, while a young Cristiano Ronaldo was starting his career in Manchester United. Spain had never won a World Cup, Manchester City did not belong to the Abu Dhabi Group, and FC Porto had just won the Champions League.

I was also a nerd (as I still am), finishing my Masters degree in Denmark, and wondering what the future would bring...

I had a World Cup football website since 1998, but blogging was a new thing, where people could write articles about whatever they wanted. So I started blogging, inspired by my friend Stig, who blogged about cool stuff, but I decided to be a nerd and blog about football, just as the 2004 European Championship had started, and Denmark had tied Italy.

How much has happened since then! I don't know what I would have thought if someone had said to me that 20 years later I would still be blogging ("get a life"!?).

As these twenty years feel to have flown by, I have gone from a young sexy student to a middle aged bald and chubby professional; I have gone through ups and downs in life as well as in football, something that I have expressed in this blog (and sometimes not), but in the end, this blog, with more than 1500 posts, has been here following me as I have seen and experienced many changes in my life, the world in general, and the footballing world in particular!

Sometimes I blog, sometimes I don't. Whenever I feel like it. Blogging is no longer cool; it is like writing with an ink-feather after the invention of the printing-press. But here I am, an old ugly fart, writing about a thing that is special to me, football. 

Football, no matter where I have been, at what time, across cultures and generations, it is a common reference point anywhere in the world. That makes it even more special, and I will try to keep blogging about it, amid my ups and downs...

Thanks if you take the time to read this.

Being on the blog

 I have not blogged for more than two months. I have before had periods during which I have blogged little, but they were either because of technical problems or because I was simply tired of football.

That is not the case now: I am following football a lot, and so many things have happened: the sad passing of the giants Mario Zagallo and Franz Beckenbauer; the (unlikely) Ivorian victory in the Africa Cup of nations; Jurgen Klopp's surprising announcement that he will leave Liverpool (as well as the lead in the Premier League and the League Cup victory over Chelsea); Paraguay's and Argentina's qualification for the Olympic Games; Real Madrid's good run (against Girona in particular) and Xavi's resignation from a very unstable Barcelona side; exciting Champions League matches, and even, closer to home, Messi making El Salvador go crazy when coming with Inter Miami to face El Salvador in a boring 0-0 match.

As I write this, I realize how many posts I have missed! But truth is that maybe the time of Blogs, like this one that I have had over 20 years, are over? Not that I mind that nobody reads it: I have always said it is like a diary, for myself, and in fact, when I read at my nearly 1500 posts, I see many moments of my life!

It is strange to think about, and it is perhaps a little bit of a loss of the discipline and inspiration to write when I see some of the many interesting football news. 

I must continue.

Bummed out

I am not football hungover as I was in 2014. I am simply bummed out. Tired of football. I have had too much disillusion over the last few years, losing my idols, one by one; losing all hope that any team I support will win anything, but worse of all seeing the game becoming more corrupt and full of hate.
People say football is like religion: nowadays, it is much worse than religion or any ideology. Just like religion it has brought good things with it, but nowadays the hateful passion of fans, commercialism, greed and petty nationalism just overshadow all the nice things about the game (of which I acknowledge, there are still many, but I must admit that I cannot see the sun for all the shadows everywhere).
I already closed my Twitter account, and now considering whether I should continue with this blog. It would be a bit nostalgic to close it down, as it has been a steady part of my life for so many years. At the same time, I feel I have nothing more to say about the "former" beautiful game. I have often used the tag "no life" in my more reflective posts. I truly have no life without football.

Ten Year anniversary of my blog

Today it is ten years ago I started this blog, during the 2004 European Championships, and immediately after the Italy-Denmark 0-0 tie. That first post was in Danish, but since I have posted in English, on this blog that in ten years has been an expression of one of the most important things in my life. I don't write my blog for anyone but myself, but happy to know that someone may read it. I write when I feel like it; I write what I feel like, with only my passion for the beautiful game as my guide.
I have had my ups and downs in those ten years, both on and off the pitch. I have lived in five countries, traveled to many more countries, and always had football as an entrance and reference point in my otherwise pretty dull life. I wrote about travels in Ghana during the 2006 World Cup, where Ghana became my darling African side. I was in Iceland for the 2008 Euro, celebrating Spain's victory. I was in France when Spain won the World Cup in 2010, in Venezuela during the 2011 Copa America, and travelled to Ukraine for the 2012 Euro.
I have been to see matches in diverse places such as Hearts of Oak and Asante Kotoko in Accra, Benfica-Braga in Lisbon, Copa Libertadores matches in Caracas, NASL match of the legendary Ft. Lauderdale Strikers, a local match in the deep Mozambican countryside, and even an amputee national match in Monrovia, Liberia.

I have been sad, happy, disappointed, elated, angry, and many more of those emotions one goes through in football, and have expressed them here, sometimes too much, but I have also tried to be objective amid my unapologetic subjectivity.

I don't know if anyone reads this, but if you happen to run into me today, I am buying a beer. I will be hanging around bars in Rome.
Cheers!

Back online

Without the problems of a bad provider hosting my previous page and with the irrelevance of tons of statistical information on my previous "fodbold-fanatic" (as well as poorly designed) I am now back with my football blog only, without the statistics and information.
Cheers and go Brøndby.

Back-posting

Yes, I am back-posting from all the posts I would write in my little notebook during my recent trip through half the world.
Sorry - I guess this blog is as much a football-diary.
Cheers.

A trip

I am off on a long trip that will take me from one side of the world to another. I do hope, however, that I will be able to watch football: I am hoping that we will be able to watch football in desolate places, to repeat our 2006 World Cup road-trip.
In any case, I am expecting that updates will be difficult over the coming period. But I shall try.
Cheers!

Facebook and football

Facebook is probably the most time-wasting shit on the internet, although I have found and stayed in touch with many friends through the social network. Nevertheless, there are tons of useless features on facebook, and with more time and a favourable internet connection, I went into check out some of them related to football:

• UEFA.com news: This brings you the latest news from UEFA, and is ok, but I think I may as well add an RSS feed on my webpage, as I don't have the habit of consulting football news on Facebook.
• What football player are you: six basic questions about some footballing habits told me I was Robinho, from Real Madrid: "Pelé's descendant, overrated, very bad teamwork, a typical Brazilian". Slam!
• English football: strange application for support of the English national team which you couldn´t get me to install by paying me for it.
• Football grounds: An application similar to the many useless "Where I've been applications", but to show which stadiums you have visited. But it wasn´t working
• Love football (soccer): I would never add an application that writes soccer in parenthesis (There is only ONE football!), and this application is a useless feature to add the badges of your favourite team on your facebook profile. Sad...
• UEFA Cup picks/Champions League/EURO 2008 picks: A game-prediciton game for the UEFA Cup and champions league. There is also a new one for the EURO 2008 and I immediately joined it and made my first round predictions (which I should publish here up to the tournament starts!)
• Premier football: a social networking game, I guess, where you can make a team made up of your facebook friends, which then play against other teams. For people with too much time...
• Fantasy football: There are so many of these on the internet, I guess Facebook had to have one; it is with Premier League football only though, but I may be tempted to make a team. (And yes, spot my self-irony: I have no life!).
• Are you a real football fan?: This is a football quiz, and is fine, although it is clearly aimed at fans of English football, with an overwhelming amount of questions on English football. But it is addicting! And just for the record: I am a superfan...

Besides the "Picks" application (I always make predictions anyway, and this makes it easier),Facebook is a great waste of time, for football fans as well.

100 football things

Since this is, I believe, my posting number 300 on this football-blog of mine, and well, because it is Christmas, I have decided to celebrate it with 100 random football things I come up with:

1. Maradona is the best footballer ever. He is the reason I started to watch and love football. There never was and never will be anyone like him.
2. Maradona´s best goal was the one with the hand against England in 1986. The second goal in the match is the second best goal ever.
3. The first football match I attended was between Ikast FS and AGF, in the Danish first division, in 1986. AGF won 0-1.
4. I have no count on the number of games I went to in Ikast and Silkeborg for a couple of years.
5. Ikast FS doesn´t exist any more as a top team; it was merged with nearby Herning to create the team with the most unpronounceable name ever, FC Midtjylland.
6. When studying nearby in Birkerød, I went to many games in Lyngby.
7. Lyngby was later relegated to one of the lowest leagues because of financial trouble.
8. I once fractured a bone in the foot playing football.
9. Brazil-France, in the quarterfinal of the 1986 world championship is the game I mostly remember as the best I have ever seen.
10. Two of my happiest football moments were: (1) 1986 when Argentina became world champion and (2) 1992 when Denmark became European Champion.
11. In 1992, I was returning from the US, when I was told Denmark was in the semifinal of the European Championships. I thought they were kidding me.
12. I have cried because of football: Argentina-Cameroon 1990, Denmark-Spain 1986 and 1993, Valencia-Bayern Munich 2001...
13. Bayern Munich fans are probably the ones I have felt most sorry for when seeing them cry at their Champions league defeat to Manchester United in 1999.
14. Eduardo Galeano´s "Fútbol a Sol y Sombra" is my favourite football book.
15. I think it is unforgiveable that they made an American version of Nick Hornby´s "Fever Pitch", where it was baseball instead of football.
16. It is called football and not soccer.
17. I had an out-of-body experience in 1998, at Parken in Copenhagen, when Alan Ravn scored a winner for Brøndby IF against Bayern Munich in the first round of the Champions League.
18. I fell in love with Valencia CF when studying there a semester in 2000.
19. I once attended a friendly match in Accra, Ghana, between Ghana and Nigeria, where they forgot to play the national anthems at the start of the match, and therefore had to play them in halftime.
20. I don't think hooliganism is acceptable, but I more than understand the passion.
21. In the US, I once attended an indoor football (soccer...) match, and it must have been one of the most boring things I have ever seen.
22. I don´t like the Italian catenaccio style. It annoys me.
23. I love Italy and its people, except in football.
24. There is nothing like a friendly football taunt among friends. Careful with the grey areas though! Only real football fans know when to stop!
25. I am definetly not Bilardista, but Menotista.
26. What annoys me even more are Norwegian football commentators.
27. I know much more about football than most people.
28. I don't like Real Madrid, but as a fan, I have deep respect for their victories and amazing players.
29. Danish FC Copenhagen is the most overrated team in the world (overrated by themselves!)
30. Brøndby fans are the best Danish fans, but Lyngby's are the coolest.
31. Lyngby stadium is not a real stadium, but they serve the best sausages in Scandinavia.
32. When I was a kid, I was selected to shoot penalties against Danish goallie Mogens Krogh, but I didn´t hear they called me in the speakers, because I was eating a sausage.
33. The highest I ever shouted in jubilation for a goal was probably in the 1990 World Cup, when Colombia equalized to 1-1 against Germany.
34. I watched the match between Ghana and the Czech Republic of the 2006 world cup on a beautiful beach in Ghana. Afterwards was a party.
35. In 2006 I was the only person in Ghana who had doubts about Ghana being able to defeat Brazil in the World Cup. Turns out I was right yet again.
36. I have won numerous beers on football bets.
37. On Politiken's (a major Danish newspaper) sofa-liga in Denmark, I once got fifth prize in Denmark.
38. In a bar called Champs, in Accra, Ghana, I won all prizes two days in a row, at a (Star) beer promotion contest on football trivia.
39. At a quiz evening in the same bar, I also singlehandedly answered all football questions correctly.
40. I am stunningly brilliant at geography, mostly because of football.
41. The most valuable football item I have is an autograph of the legend Michael Laudrup.
42. At a match between Denmark and Hungary in 1994 I saw Ferenc Puskas among the spectators. I tried in vain to get an autograph.
43. I never saw Puskas play, but I think every football fanatic has heard the legends of the 1954 Hungarian team and Puskas' subsequent career in Real Madrid.
44. The Spanish football daily Marca is the one I read the most.
45. I like drinking beers while watching a good Champions League match in a nice bar, something I have done in Brussels, Valencia, Copenhagen, Accra, Arusha, Johannesburg, Maputo...
46. The best beer to drink during football is a pint of Stella Artois.
47. I think David Beckham is a great footballer, but I truly dislike all the super-star hype around him.
48. Michael Owen is a great footballer.
49. Last year I went to see Barcelona defeat Zaragoza 3-1 in the Camp Nou in Barcelona.
50. I once travelled all the way to Kumasi in local buses, to see a semifinal in the African Cup winners cup between Asante Kotoko and some Congolese team.
51. My favourite French footballer is Zinedine Zidane, in a tuff contest with Michel Platini.
52. I hope one day to be at a World Cup final.
53. I also hope to be at a Champions League final. I have already been to quite a few Champions League matches, in Copenhagen and Valencia.
54. I have great football karma on the countries I live in: they usually do well.
55. Football has always broken down barriers every where I have been in the world. It is not for anything that it is a language of the world.
56. In 1994 I was in Colombia when Andrés Escobar was murdered.
57. Ukraine-Switzerland in the 2006 World Cup is probably one of the single most boring match I have ever managed to watch.
58. As a young lad playing ball, I was once red-carded for telling the referee he was a piss-referee. All the kids considered me the coolest kid on the team.
59. Piss referees.
60. The best goal celebration I ever saw was Marco Tardelli in the world cup final of 1982.
61. A goal I particularly remember was Eder, from Brasil, against the USSR in 1982: A brilliant shot from outside.
62. The USSR had a brilliant team in 1986, but in the World Cup lost to Belgium in the last-16, in a very awkward match, where the referee favoured the team full of Anderlecht players.
63. When doing a stage at the European Commission in Brussels in 2001, I played on an excellent team called "The Empty Chairs". We didn´t win the tournament, but won many fans for our charm and beer-consumption.
64. In 1988 I played on a team from Bording IF, which won SDS Cup in Sunds.
65. The best team we ever played against was AGF who were Jutland champions. We lost...
66. In Lyngby I once attended a match between Brøndby and Lyngby in which Lyngby, because of an odd mathematical invention in the Danish league, had to lose in order to qualify for a tournament the following year. Lyngby unsurprisingly lost 5-2, and every fan was happy.
67. Michael Laudrup played for Lyngbys old-boys team.
68. In 1991 I was living in the US when Barcelona won the European Cup final against Sampdoria 1-0 on a goal by Ronald Koeman. I listened to the match in a short-wave radio.
69. Ronald Koeman is currently coaching Valencia CF and I hope he does well.
70. I miss el Piojo Lopez. I went to his last game in Valencia, against Zaragoza, in 2000.
71. The first time I saw a real womens match, was in the US. My high school at Centerville, Ohio, had a very good girls team, and they were very good-looking.
72. First full womens match I saw on TV was the 1999 World Cup final.
73. I think womens football is great, but it (still) does lack the intensity of passion of the men.
74. Marta's goal against the USA in the semifinal of the 2007 Women's World Cup was amazing.
75. The best football song ever made is Mano Negra´s Santa Maradona!
76. I once worked for Viasat sport watching football games and getting paid for it. They could have paid me beer.
77. My all-time best team from World Cups includes Puskas, Pelé, Maradona, Beckenbauer, Cruyff... It is almost unrealistic, but I thought there was something immoral in not including Zico.
78. I was a big fan of Lothar Matthäus.
79. I do not believe I will live to see an African team win a world cup.
80. In 1991 I went to a friendly match between the Olympic teams of Poland and Spain. The following year, these two teams had made it to the Olympic final in Barcelona.
81. Olympic football is generally boring.
82. The best football nowadays is undoubtfully what we see in the UEFA Champions League.
83. I am a big fan of the World Cup, but the last two have been hugely disappointing at the level of football quality.
84. I don´t think the World Cup in South Africa will have a very high level.
85. Last football match I went to was a friendly match between Nipita and Mazua in the Mozambican backlands.
86. Mozambique will never ever be world champion.
87. When Valencia CF won the UEFA Cup in 2004 I was absolutely unbeatable for half a year.
88. Many referees have upset me in my life. The referee that has most upset me was the one between Italy and Argentina, in the semifinal of the 1990 World Cup.
89. I was once at a kids tournament in Ghana, where each European Embassy sponsored a local school. Germany won.
90. When I was a kid, it seemed that Germany always won.
91. Claudio Canniggia is an idol of mine, mostly because of the winning goal he scored against Brazil in the last-16 of the 1990 World Cup. It was a totally undeserved victory, but as every fan of a team knows, that doesn't matter when you support them.
92. It annoys me when people say, "I always support the team that wins...". Then you know they are not football fans.
93. My favourite player at the moment is Lionel Messi. He can get far; I hope he will.
94. Luis Aragonés is a twit.
95. Nowadays I manage to talk less of football under circumstances that are not calling for it. Some people don´t even know that there is a passionate football heart beating behind my serious and sexy outside.
96. In Mexico in 1986 I met some guy from the Canadian football association. He gave me a pin for Canada, who ended up losing all their three matches at the 1986 World Cup.
97. I don´t think God watches football nor listens to football prayers.
98. The best goalkeeper I have ever seen was Peter Schmeichel. He was all for Denmark and for the Brøndby team I followed in the early nineties.
99. In 1989 I went to watch the Danish Cup final between Brøndby IF and Ikast FS. Brøndby won 6-3, and the Brøndby team was almost a copy of the team that in 1992 won the European Championship: Peter Schmeichel, Lars Olsen, Kim Vilfort, John Jensen, Brian Laudrup...
100. I think Brøndby Stadium should officially be renamed to Vilfort Park.

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Back-posting

This is a service message for my football-blog:
Due to my precarious access to internet, I will be back-posting entries. That is, I put back the date, as I usually write the entries on my laptop.
Sorry, a bit old-fashioned, but best I can do living in the Mozambican bush...

Cheer from someone looking for football

I have been trying to get some of my passion back:

• Saw Valencia defeated Villarreal in the Spanish League. They are now back fighting for the title and Champions League spots. Yuhu.
• Watched one half of Espanyol-Barcelona. Half a match in three months...
• Mourinho is on his way out of Chelsea apparently. If he has got no job, he is welcome to hang out with me.
• Had a vivid discussion on the return of Lyngby B to the Danish Superliga, as well as Brøndby's awful season. I was drinking beer with some guys, so it wasn't hard.
• Heard Christian Poulsen was made player of the year in Denmark. Only heard it two weeks after it happened.
• Some Italian became world player of the year.
• Beckham is on his way to Los Angeles (did anyone know they play football there!?). Big Surprise: people will appreciate his haircuts over there.
• A friend challenged me on the UEFA Champions League Fantasy Football. I made a team, but forgot who is on it.

I am seriously looking for my football passion. I think it disappeared with "my mojo" somewhere. Little goofy guy, big grin, with glasses, and losing his hair. If anyone has seen him, please let me know, as I am i serious need of some football!

My football fanatic blog: One year birthday

It is today exactly one year ago I started my web-log here on football fanatic. A lot of things have happened in my life as well, so I am happy to celebrate this day with a pint of good beer.
I started it all during the Euro 2004 in Portugal. My first comment was on Denmark's disappointing 0-0 with Italy.
On that same day, after I had made my posting, I watched the later champions of Greece tie 1-1 with Denmark, and Portugal defeat Russia 2-0.

I really love blogging. I will continue doing it, and I hope whoever reads these humble words will as well. I'll buy you a beer! Cheers!

Dette er min første posting

Danmark spillede sgu godt. Men derfor er 0-0 en skuffelse. Hvor fedt er det at få 0-0 mod et hold man burde have slået. Vi tabte to point. Jeg er sgu ked af det. Trist trist.