GO DEEPER
Soccer in Greenland, a place that ‘does not just build igloos’
The federation is assessing plans to build air domes to cover pitches and keep out the elements. Funding that project, Kleist said, will be much easier if they’re a legitimized footballing nation.
If Concacaf approves Greenland’s application, Greenland would be eligible to participate in the confederation’s football tournaments, but not youth or senior-level World Cup qualifiers, which are regulated by FIFA. Non-FIFA members can participate in youth World Cup qualifying tournaments as a football development initiative, but only FIFA member nations can earn a berth in a World Cup tournament.
Greenland would become the seventh Concacaf member that isn’t a recognized FIFA member, following French territories Martinique, French Guiana, Guadeloupe and Saint Martin and Dutch territories Sint Maarten and Bonaire.
“We love football and our biggest goal is for us to be recognized as a football nation,” Kleist said. “Right now, we don’t have a name. Nobody knows about us in the football world. Political independence, I don’t want to talk about it, but football-wise, we want to be independent.”
Kleist believes Greenland’s growing interest in football is an important factor that Concacaf should consider. There are just under 56,000 people who live in Greenland, according to the latest United Nations estimates, and Kleist said 10% of the population plays the sport.
“I don’t even know how to describe the feeling if we get a membership to Concacaf,” Kleist said. “I have goosebumps just thinking about it, because I think there’s a lot of heart and dedication and pride in this.”
Kreutzmann took the call from The Athletic inside a hair salon in downtown Nuuk, Greenland’s capital.
“I’m working, but don’t worry about my customers,” he said. “They are waiting.”
At his “other” job, the 28-year-old Kreutzmann is a quick dribbler who plays as an inverted left winger.
“I’m right-footed. I’m like (Liverpool’s) Luis Díaz,” he said with a laugh. “I really like how he plays. I watch those types of players, the good dribblers.”
Kreutzmann’s younger brother plays alongside him on the national team and he has cousins who are professional handball players in Denmark. Both his parents were high-level athletes, and his father and grandfather played football for the Greenland national team.
Still, Søren Høy, a Dane who works closely with KAK and also serves as a team interpreter, said Kreutzmann is too modest about his qualifications.
“His entire family are as fit as greyhounds,” Høy said. “They are so disciplined with their sports and they are all considered role models because both the men and the women of the family are perfect athletes. And what’s more, every kid, every footballing kid, will only have their hair cut by Søren.”
“This is true,” Kreutzmann said. “They all want a cut like (Cristiano) Ronaldo or (Kylian) Mbappé and (Jude) Bellingham. The taper fade.”
Kreutzmann has played over 30 times for the senior men’s football and futsal national teams. But there is a sense of unfulfilled potential — a disappointment that is shared by the Greenlandic squad’s veteran players. The Concacaf bid presents an opportunity they never thought was possible. Years of football without purpose have denied players the incentive that drives professional athletes around the world.
“It’s sometimes hard to have motivation,” Kreutzmann said.
UEFA national teams won’t schedule matches against countries not belonging to a FIFA confederation, so Greenland’s senior men’s team has resorted to playing friendlies against the country’s first-division clubs and teams in Denmark and Iceland.
That meant a friendly against Turkmenistan last June was viewed as momentous for Greenlandic football. Greenland’s players who have full-time jobs lost income in order to travel to Turkey, where 143rd-ranked Turkmenistan beat them, 5-0. It’s all a means to an end.
“I hope to reach a bigger tournament in football,” Kreutzmann said. “If we join Concacaf… that would be incredible.”
A football pitch in Maniitsoq, Greenland. (James Brooks / AFP via Getty Images)
Thomas Høegh, 39, anchors Greenland’s back line, helping his younger teammates adapt to Danish manager Morten Rutkjær’s tactics. Høegh was born in Denmark and currently lives in Copenhagen, where he teaches fifth-grade grammar, literature and physical education.
“The kids talk about it a lot,” Høegh said with a grin. “There aren’t a lot of national team players at the school.”
Høegh has played for Greenland six times and has known Rutkjær for more than a decade. They crossed paths over the years in the Danish football circuit. When Rutkjær was considering taking the Greenland national team job in 2019, Høegh mentioned he was half Greenlandic.
“Morten was so surprised and told me, ‘We need to get you in the team as soon as possible,” Høegh recalled. “I’m almost 40 now, so I’m at the very late stage of my career, but still keeping up.”
Høegh’s mother was Greenlandic, but he admitted that as a child in Denmark, he didn’t fully connect with her island roots. She died when he was 15, and Høegh said he struggled to reconcile the realities of his heritage.
“When I lost my mother, I took the Greenlandic part in me and put it a little bit behind me,” Høegh said. “It was difficult for me to handle as a young kid.”
He continued: “It was difficult to be a half-Greenlandic boy in Denmark because of the lack of insight from the Danish people into how the Greenlandic culture is, the values and the nature of many things. As I grew older, people started commenting on it in a more negative way.”
“I definitely feel some pride,” Høegh added when asked if he feels he is honoring his mother’s memory when he wears the Greenland kit. “Because now I’m actually sitting and talking to people about this. I’ve never done this, not even with my wife. There are many feelings in this. So I definitely think about honoring her and my family’s name.”
Regarding the political firestorm hovering over Greenland’s Concacaf bid, Høegh doesn’t believe it will negatively affect the national team’s objectives. Trump’s comments, though, struck a nerve. He called the president’s intentions about acquiring Greenland — and refusing to rule out military force — as “a bit arrogant.”
“At some point, I just thought, ‘Oh, that was not smart of him to say,’” Høegh said. “(Greenland) is not something you can just go and buy or claim. I would say that maybe it’s a good thing to go into some sort of collaboration (with the U.S.) or to see how this can be a benefit for the Greenlandic people.”
For Greenland, certainly not top of mind for most of the world, more press in Denmark is a good thing, he said, particularly for younger people.
“(Danish people) have no idea what is going on in Greenland,” Høegh said. “They only have an idea based on what they hear other people say, but they have never heard all the positive things. So I think the focus now is not a bad thing.”
From left, Greenland goalkeeper coach Mikkel Willumsen, manager Morten Rutkjær and assistant manager Morten Hamm. (Photo courtesy of the Football Association of Greenland)
In Greenland there are few matches to prepare for and limited time to train due to the harsh winter, so, like his players, Rutkjær has a second job. When he isn’t coaching Greenland, he spends his days in Denmark scouting for the Danish youth national teams.
Rutkjær speaks confidently, though, about Greenland’s chances to join Concacaf. There’s a belief among those who have been part of the Greenland bid that good news may come sooner than later, and that KAK’s diligence will pay off. Starting in June, there will be direct four-hour flights from Newark to Nuuk, and Rutkjær said Greenland could bear the brunt of travel costs if Concacaf membership is secured.
“Our biggest dream is that we can play our first official national team match in Greenland,” Rutkjær said. “It’s also important to be a member of Concacaf because the small children (in Greenland) will have something to dream about, to maybe be part of the national team and play against all of those countries.”
Amid that optimism, he’s also realistic about the state of the national team. He praises his players’ love for the game and dedication to their country. From a football sense, he continues to focus on the basics in order to gradually improve their overall play.
“The players like each other. They have a family culture,” Rutkjær said. “But they also play for themselves. They forget how to defend the goal. At first, the opponents scored a lot of goals. Now we work on organization and structure.”
The majority of his players are amateurs, but Rutkjær is an experienced UEFA-licensed coach whose philosophy focuses on attacking space from a 4-3-3 system. He has long admired Morten Olsen, considered the godfather of Danish football tactics. With Greenland, Rutkjær has to dial back his intentions to attack with numbers.
There’s a culture of football that is only now truly beginning to blossom. Still, Rutkjær is adamant that his side can compete with Concacaf’s Caribbean nations, while acknowledging that “USA and Mexico are too good.”
Over the past six years, Rutkjær has recruited over 50 players from within Greenland, Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Iceland and other parts of the world. The current national team has seven players from outside Greenland. It’s a young and inexperienced group.
“That’s very important for Greenland, because those (seven) players are like professional players,” Rutkjær said. “They can apply what they’ve learned at their clubs outside Greenland to the national team. They give so much to the players from Greenland. The younger players study in high school. Some of the other players work at a bank, they work with kids who have problems, some work at a cafe. There are fishermen who earn a lot of money catching fish. It’s a very different national team.”
One of Rutkjær’s assistants is Nukannguaq Zeeb, a 42-year-old Greenland native who resides in Iceland. One of his main responsibilities is to focus on the players’ mentality, and he translates for Rutkjær, an important link between the players from Greenland’s rural north and those who live in Nuuk.
“I know a lot about what’s happening in Greenland, and I know the players, their culture,” Zeeb said via an interpreter. “They have a lot on their minds. There’s a lot of work to do on my side to prepare them for what it takes to be on the national team. They need to focus on their training. They need to focus on their mental health, and they need to educate themselves.”
Zeeb is a published novelist and a singer-songwriter for a popular band in Greenland named Tulleriit, which his two younger brothers started in 2011. They have released three albums. Zeeb writes the majority of the band’s lyrics and plays the guitar. The band’s folk-rock and indie-alternative sound merge with unique Greenlandic storytelling. Zeeb said that he doesn’t struggle to balance music and football. He can do both, and spends quite a bit of time arranging trials for Greenland’s young players at professional clubs in Iceland and the Faroe Islands.
Zeeb believes Greenlanders didn’t pay much attention to Trump’s statements because “Greenland is a sovereign country.” He agrees with Høegh that most citizens of Greenland would support the Greenlandic government’s push to establish new trade partners and renewed opportunities.
If Greenland’s bid fails, they won’t try to join another confederation. “That’s definitely a no,” Kleist said.
KAK instead would focus on increased collaborations with the Danish Football Federation and the Icelandic Football Federation. But it’d be a bitter pill to swallow if a federation and country desperate to establish themselves on a greater sporting stage were to be left in the cold.
“If we — when we — become a member of Concacaf, then the players have something to look forward to,” Rutkjær said. “It’ll give meaning to training, to staying in shape. Right now, they have nothing to look forward to.”
For Zeeb, however, the expectation is providing a sense of hope that he has carried with him since childhood.
“It’s almost impossible to explain how magnificent and big it would be to join Concacaf,” he said. “I’ve been dreaming of it since I was a kid. It would be a game-changer for the whole Greenlandic football mentality.”
(Top image: Illustration: Dan Goldfarb/The Athletic; Marc Atkins/Getty Images/iStock)
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Publish date : 2025-02-17 21:00:00
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