Hjulmand, the Duke of Lecce

Summer 2022. One of the hottest ever. A somber young man walks the streets of Lecce: Lecce stone pierces his Scandinavian skin. His name is Mortenborn in a suburb of Copenhagen – Kastrup -, five feet tall, but weighs almost seventy-three kilos. Very blond. Very blue eyes. teenage beard. square face. Simple, flawless style. Maybe he’s unsure whether to eat raw fish with his girlfriend in Gallipoli or a gourmet hamburger in Galatina. He is one of those people who experience all facets of Italy’s sales. A season and a half with Lecce in Serie B singing popular songs and carrying grapes on their shoulders.

Get the 42 behind your back. He learned to cook Salento like no other in the team. Memory, promotion to Serie A: His senses go wild at the thought of the Curva Nord. No distraction, he was summoned via Colonnello Costadura, the club’s HQ, because Pantaleo Corvino, Saverio Sticchi Damiani and Marco Baroni have to give him something: the captain’s armband at the age of 23to lead the tournament’s youngest army of seventeen debutants in the top Italian championship. Including him. A big responsibility. The most important thing in his career: he had already shown a clear lead in the youth teams of Copenhagen and the Danish national team in the Bundesliga (Austria), including Admira Wacker M. But in Italian football it’s different.

It takes timeless temperament and humanity to lead a Southern people hungry for football and rebirth. Fans never tame: as a philosophy not very different from that of the Vikings. That’s why he understands her.

Morten implements his mission immediately: embody the values ​​of the smartest company in the twenty in the starting blocks. loyalty and courage. accept the band Be the first to step onto the green carpet of Via del Mare. August 13, 2022, Lecce-Inter, the debut. A clear rubber band on the forehead: like a Lombard duke, he is leading on his own journey will do. An arduous path since his army is the one with the lowest market value on paper. But he doesn’t care: he tells everyone, if necessary, between his meaningful silences: Go ahead, Shamu! Although he seemed to say kom så kammerater, lad os gå!

Morten Hjulmanddiscovered by Crow to Admira Wacker M., quickly taken over for only 170,000 euros. Today it takes between fifteen and twenty million to get it out of Sant’Oronzo’s fingers, but the price could go up given the speed of progress – it’s almost tripled compared to July 2022. Median in front of the defence: He protects the central defenders and marks the playing times. His main qualities are physical: box-to-box footballer who never tires of going from the Punta Palascìa lighthouse to the Santa Maria di Leuca lighthouse.

Then the tackles, old-fashioned tackles aimed at winning back ball and transitioning action from defensive to offensive: clean slides and ninety-minute duels with the league’s best. He holds the reins of the Giallorossi midfield, guaranteeing a balance that supports the attacking wingers and the forward in their constant search for pressing. The dates of each of the Serie A Liga classics don’t lie: first intercepted for balls, 49; first for steals, 80; third for tackles, 57; among the best for won duels, 113.

Call the hermetic movements of the central department, the first and third lines like a small carriage in the square. Since the beginning of the championship increases his technical baggage: the wording in the construction of the maneuver or to get the opponents out of the bolt; the long throw to shorten the restart on the wings; the deep through ball for the midfielder or center forward; the perfectly cut flank near the penalty area or on the trocar, which brought Federico Baschirotto pleasure on several occasions. When physical skills are innate, technical fundamentals improve visibly.

But the most iconic gift from the Danish national team’s future playmaker and breakwater, which earned him the captain’s armband at such a young age, is the work ethic combined with the behavioral ethic off the field. He uses social networks intelligently: he doesn’t waste any time, only publishes when it’s necessary, preferring to communicate directly with the fans he meets in the baroque streets, whom he never refuses to take a picture of or chat with. Quiet leader who catechizes when needed and shows a remarkable temper in battle on the field. If you talk to us, you wouldn’t say it.

He could be the supporting character of an Anders Bodelsen novel, necessary for the development of the plot: a boy with precise dreams, the face of Danish neorealism, opposed to the social effects of materialism and the contradictions of the middle class, who develops individuals striving for success without morality. Morten is a moral footballer. The sacrifice made to passionate Lecce fans could be a metaphor for Lars von Trier’s cinema and his own Heart of the Gold Trilogy: Kindness and altruism in life can sometimes paradoxically lead to a painful fate – story by US Lecce docet – but they are the example to be passed on, the best way to try to conquer a dream.

Wealthy Premier League clubs and traditional Italian clubs they are interested to Hjulmand’s performances to take him to play the European Cup and definitely explode.

It still has lots of room for improvement in reading the game, shooting from the outside, and aiming to accompany the maneuvered action. Even if it were the farewell season at the Den of Wolves, he would be remembered in the Giallorossi microcosm as one of the strongest midfielders to ever howl in median, as well as one of the bravest captains both in and out of Via del Mare. Morten, however, has planted his head in the present: save Lecce, giving the prestige of many performances against all odds that allowed the future Italian champion of Napoli to be blocked in Maradona make noses wrinkled specialMourinho, destroy Sarri and Gasperini and make the big players of the north tremble, Juve, Milan and Inter.

After a soul-sapping performance, to the last drop of sweat, Morten hugs his wife and takes her to look at the turquoise sea of ​​the Salento coast. As he scans the horizon – like a rival’s legs in midfield trying to snatch the ball from him – he sees the bronze forms of Copenhagen’s Little Mermaid materialize in the waters of Lecce. In an impressionist painting by Peder Severin Krøyer, he embraces his wife, the pastime he loves most, as if they were a couple from another era. With Bluetooth headphones, it wouldn’t be surprising if there was playback 7 years by Luke Graham: «I was 20 once/ I only see my goals, I don’t believe in failure».

Seven, like the years it took Morten to reach Football That Matters since Brian Riemer, his coach at Copenhagen Football Club’s youth team, predicted it would. At this point, a Captain Hjulmand – duke from Lecce – and to his will do What remains is to dare to follow in the footsteps of Søren Kierkegaard (played in the press room of “Sergio Lavorato” and in the dressing room of Marco Baroni): “To dare is to lose your balance for a moment. Not daring means getting lost».