Luther College Arrives In Scandinavia To Explore Denmark And Norway Before Facing Norwegian National Team In Historic American Football Game
Copenhagen, Denmark
The Luther College American football team has arrived in Copenhagen, Denmark and embarked on an educational visit to Scandinavia, highlighted by a game against the Norwegian national team on Saturday.
The student-athletes have already begun a culture and history course, focusing on the different places they will visit, to provide essential background information for the trip organized by Global Football.
While in Denmark, the Norse will hold a coaching session to help the development of Danish junior American football players and then on Saturday, May 30, in Oslo, Norway, head coach Aaron Hafner will lead his team against the Norwegian national team that will play competitively for the first time since 2007 following a period of rebuilding. The game against Luther, which kicks off at 3pm local time / 9am US ET, will help Norway build experience toward the European Championship qualification cycle that starts later this year.
“We’re really excited about this trip,” said Coach Hafner. “When I first got the job at Luther I sat down with some of the players to ask how we could improve our program and the experience they wanted playing football at Luther. I kept hearing the same thing over and over that they wanted to play abroad, so we set up a trip.
It is going to be a study abroad program and we have a lot of educational pieces, but ultimately we get to play a game against the Norwegian national team, so we’re really excited about it.”
Coach Hafner was a member of the Team Stars & Stripes coaching staff for the annual Global Football-organized Tazón de Estrellas (Bowl of the Stars) NCAA D-III game in Mexico in December. Coaching the American select team at the end of season also allowed him to plan the Luther visit to Scandinavia.
“When I went down to Mexico, I had an opportunity to organize this trip with Patrick Steenberge of Global Football,” explained Hafner. “We wanted to do a community service project and some educational pieces and play some football and relax and have some fun. We came up with the best plan that we thought would be a great experience for our kids.
I’ve told every kid that we recruit and those that are here now that this will be an every four-year thing and if you come to Luther you’ll have a chance to play abroad against a foreign team.”
Heading overseas on a spring tour allows coaches to get their players in pads, on the practice field and in a unique game situation during May, which also appealed to Hafner and his staff during their preparations for the 2015 fall campaign.
“You get a lot out of it and that’s part of the reason you travel,” he added. “The players who are going on our trip have an opportunity to get some extra practices in May, so yes, there’s an advantage there. Ultimately you get to go and play another game that much closer to the beginning of the new football season.”
Daily updates from three weeks of Global Football adventures in Europe will be posted at www.Facebook.com/GlobalFootballLTD and on Twitter @GlobalSportsGuy along with live updates from each game played between the American colleges and their European hosts.
About Global Football:
Since 1996 Global Football has provided amateur football players, coaches, families and fans the opportunity to travel and compete internationally with similar people of differing cultures. During that time they have produced games and tours in 21 countries on 6 continents, including the 2012 and 2014 GIFT events staged in Ireland alongside the NCAA college football games. Through these games, clinics and tours the people involved experience and learn about unique lands, fascinating people, and the sports environment in different parts of the world. Global Football has become the world’s largest exporter and producer of American football outside of the USA.