Under pouring rainy, the senior football team of AB Copenhagen (Denmark) comprised of members over 70 years old visited the JFA House along with the senior Japanese footballers.

The Danish team arrived to Japan with the O-70 members of North Carolina in the United States and visited Saitama, Kyoto, Chiba, and Kanagawa Prefectures to participate in an international exchange with the senior Japanese players, and enjoyed one or two friendlies every other day, totaling over 10 matches of these amicable encounters of 30 ~ 40 minute halves during their stay.

Their visitation was part of the grassroots exchange program agreed upon in the partnership agreement signed between the Japan Football Association (JFA) and the Danish Football Association (or the Dansk Boldspil-Union, DBU) on Tuesday 7 February. Since one of their objectives of this trip was to visit the JFA House, they took this day when the scheduled games were cancelled due to rain to tour the football facilities in Japan.

Under heavy rain, seven graduate members of the former Imperial University Football Team welcomed ten Danish seniors before they visited Japan Football Museum. Their lifelong aspiration of ‘exchange through sports’ was observed, and football served as a means of communication between the seniors who took delight in this international exchange without injuries, but with smiles.

Comment

Andersen AB Copenhagen Team Manager
It was a wonderful football museum. I was surprised to see our national team also being exhibited there. If the weather were a bit better, then we would have visited the site along with the senior members from North Carolina, Japan and other club teams. There were over 70 applicants for this Japan visit, and we are looking to organise another tour the following year and revisit the JFA House along with few friendly matches. We still do not considered ourselves as retired players, but as active professionals. This exchange was only among three countries, namely the United States, Japan and Denmark, but I hope in the future we can expand this exchange to include more countries and host an O-70 World Cup.