Denmark’s Hojbjerg talks grief, growth and glory & More News Here

Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg is a key participant for Denmark and Tottenham Hotspur

The midfielder has come by important private and skilled challenges

He speaks to FIFA concerning the feelings that drive him and his hopes for Qatar 2022

Rigshospitalet is the largest hospital in Denmark and routinely finds itself ranked as the most effective on the earth. It additionally occurs to supply an outlook – throughout timber and soccer pitches – on the nation’s nationwide stadium, Parken.

Together, these venues exert a permanent, emotional affect on the life and profession of Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg.

The Tottenham Hotspur midfielder was born in Rigshospitalet, grew up in its Osterbro district and, as he did so, working out at Parken grew to become – and remained – an obsession.

Even after realising that dream many occasions over, and regardless of shifting overseas when he was simply 17, that Copenhagen area – and its close by hospital – continued to loom massive in his story. Both of his kids had been born in Rigshospitalet, and it was there {that a} quick, frantic journey from Parken was made following his buddy Christian Eriksen’s cardiac arrest at UEFA EURO 2020.

But lengthy earlier than it hit the headlines for its position within the saving of Eriksen’s life, Hojbjerg had sat in that very same hospital spending time with – then saying goodbye to – his beloved father. This was when he was nonetheless 18, lower than a yr after his dream transfer to Bayern Munich however, crucially, simply weeks earlier than he broke into Denmark’s senior facet.

As he advised FIFA: “I’ve always had a strong emotional connection with the national team. It was a big dream of my father, and for me too, that I would play for the team one day.

“As my father was getting more and more ill, I was getting closer and closer to doing that. I actually remember there was a national team game in March of that year, and I was called up with the U-21s. I’d really hoped to be with the first team and, looking back now, I can see that I was angry.”

The name he craved arrived simply over two months later. Cruelly, it got here simply too late for this shared dream to be realised by each father and son.

“He passed away a month before my debut,” Hojbjerg defined. “The final time I noticed him, I’d develop into a German champion for the second time beneath Pep Guardiola. We watched the [title-clinching] recreation on German TV as a result of I’d requested for day off to be with my father as he was actually struggling by then.

“The hospital he was being handled in is simply subsequent door to Parken and I bear in mind being with him, searching the window on the stadium, and him saying, ‘Now you just need to play for the national team and you’ve had a terrific yr.’ We had been laughing, and that caught with me.

“I really consider he’s with me day by day, however for him not to have the ability to watch me play for the nationwide staff harm me rather a lot. I bear in mind scoring my first objective for Denmark and discovering it troublesome to take pleasure in it and be glad as a result of I used to be lacking the one man I wished to see it. People had been asking me the subsequent day, ‘Why are you not happy? You’re 18 and you’ve simply scored for the nationwide staff’.

“But I wasn’t happy and, looking back, it eventually took over in my club career too. I was trying to do some sort of grieving and not giving myself the space to do it.”

Although he has made his title as a troublesome, tireless and fiercely dedicated midfielder, it ought to come as no shock to listen to Hojbjerg converse with such emotion and eloquence. This self-described “Viking” has a delicate facet too, and it got here to the fore once more – bringing ideas of his absent father and tears – when Denmark reached the EURO semi-finals.

“I get, you know (mimics a lump in his throat) when I talk with my mother about those moments, which I know he would have loved to see,” Hojbjerg defined. “But I always say, ‘Yeah, but he is seeing it. He is there and he is following it through me, through my brother and my sister, through my uncles – he is seeing it.

“That feeling of missing out also sort of changed a bit when my kids arrived. I use that love, and I do it for them. Since I’ve had my kids I’ve found a way to live with [the grief] and found a place for it.”

Despite his present standing as a linchpin for membership and nation – cherished and lauded by the groups’ respective coaches – Hojbjerg has endured skilled setbacks in addition to private heartbreak. Among essentially the most bruising, he says, was his omission from the Denmark squad for the final FIFA World Cup™.

“That was painful. It’s not a nice memory for me,” he admitted. “I’ve said before, though, that it was maybe the most important time in my senior football career because I learned a lot and appreciated and focused a lot on small things, working very hard on myself.

“Mentally, it was a battle. But I definitely came out from that battle much, much stronger. I don’t want to say it, but maybe it was what I needed.”

With Hojbjerg a more accomplished and rounded player and personality than he was in 2018, there is no chance – provided he remains injury-free – of him missing a second FIFA World Cup. Denmark coach Kasper Hjulmand is a huge fan and has frequently lauded a player he describes as “bringing immense passion” and “contributing a lot, both offensively and defensively”.

That admiration is reciprocated, too, with Hojbjerg glowing in his assessment of a coach who has managed to blend success and slick, free-flowing football with an invaluable personal touch.

He mentioned: “With Kasper, I go all the way and he knows that. He’s a coach that, for me, is really a bit groundbreaking in terms of his approach. Technically and tactically, he’s a very special coach and, as a human, he’s a very modern leader. He’s special.

“Sometimes you feel with him, ‘How do you find time for everyone?’ Because it seems that he gives everyone time. But then he has that focus when the games come, and in training. He’s a guy who goes into my heart.”

Remarkably, Hjulmand has succeeded not only in establishing that emotional connection with his players, but in extending it from the team to the wider nation. The result is a country that has fallen deeply in love with its national side, and matches at Parken that provide food for the soul as well as a feast for the eyes.

“When we are playing it feels like we are one,” Hojbjerg said of the relationship between team and fans. “Emotionally, we are very connected and this is something special and very powerful. It’s also something that’s not forced – it comes naturally, and it’s very unique. I can recommend a lot coming to a game in Parken because it’s quite special.”

The side’s success and the relatability of its coach and players naturally form part of that story. But as Hjulmand acknowledged in a recent interview with FIFA, the shared ordeal of Eriksen’s very public brush with death served to strengthen existing bonds as a traumatised nation “healed together”.

“It was a focal point,” agreed Hojbjerg. “Everyone gathered around it and got closer. We were like this before but [after Eriksen’s collapse] it became even clearer and more real.

“Fortunately, the story is now beautiful in every single way: Christian is here with us today, we as a team eventually did well and everyone is proud. In that sense it became a beautiful story. And it’s fantastic to see him back.”

With Eriksen not just back, but back with a bang, and the team having cruised through qualifying in his absence, there is much excitement about Denmark’s FIFA World Cup prospects. And just as Hjulmand has embraced the tag of dark horses for the title – “the only thing better would be to be called one of the favourites” – so his midfield lieutenant is setting no limits on what can be achieved.

“The belief is great – a belief in our own qualities and in what we’re doing,” he said. “It’s also the strength of understanding that, ok, we’re not Brazil, Germany or France, but we have something the others don’t have. We just have to be able to use that and see how far we can go with it.”

Passion, togetherness and the talents of a well-balanced team certainly proved to be a potent blend in qualifying. If Hojbjerg and Co can maintain those sky-high standards, a triumphant and emotionally charged Parken December homecoming might well be within their grasp this December.