After last night’s dreadful, dire, downright emboeressing Bafana Bafana performance at Cape Town Stadium, I’m not sure I want to mention Norway, but I’m going to anyway. Here’s a Norwegian doing something with balls that only Titak Elyounounssi managed in 90 minutes of the worst football I can remember seeing in years – kicking them accurately to other people and sticking them neatly and skilfully between some posts:
The Norwegian in question is Harvard Rugland and unsurprisingly, the New York Jets American Football team is very interested in getting him to come and play for them.
At a time when people are increasingly taking to social media to showcase their talent, Rugland might be on the verge of going from viral-video-of-the-week to pro athlete. “I never would have thought it would come to this,” he said during a recent phone interview from his home in southern Norway. “I put the film up mostly for friends and family. But as it turns out, there were a lot more people who liked it. It’s overwhelming.” Must be, for someone whose only previous experience with football was the European soccer version, and who has only a sketchy familiarity with the rules of the American game. Living in Aalgaard, a town with less than 10,000 people, he started kicking for fun about a year ago after his local soccer club shut down and he needed another outlet.
Rugland went over to the US for training and trials in November and has been invited back for further evaluation in March this year.
UPDATE: The music is The State of Massachusetts by, appropriately enough, Dropkick Murphys – YouTube.
