55 Football Nations hits Norwegian press!

Project Ball Insane! BA, the Bergen daily, reports on the now broken curse of 55FN and watching football in a smoky Egyptian café. English translation courtesy of Google!

Matt Walker (40) has a bit of a PROJECT BALL INSANE in front of him. But on Brann fight on Monday he was lucky. Do not tell the truth before the break!

No, this was it fifth match on the round trip my so far. In the other four – one in Georgia, two matches in Iceland and saw one on the Faroe Islands – have home made been great favourites in all but lost! Comrades mine had started to yell I was a traveling traveller curse, Matt Walker flies.

He has taken the lead to visit and see an elite race in all of them 55 member countries in the European football federation (UEFA) during the coming year. The project will be a book about football and travel, and with 3-0 to homemade Brann for a break Monday could be the London lad. Draw a sigh of relief: He does not bring accidents over the teams he still visits!

Had I known about this, did not you let in? The match, laughs Lars Arne Nilsen when BA introduces him to Walker after Thursday’s Brann training and tells about the results at the start of his journey … impressive project, but beware of Kazakhstan, warns the Brann coach, who experienced that two of his best players did not get a visa for the old one Soviet state when he was there.

With Hödd to meet it more or less “state” team Aktobe in 2013. Hödd won 1-0 home but lost 2-0 away. We never got an explanation why they did not get a visa once. Corrupt stuff. It does still pissed off thinking on, sugar Brann coach. “I’ll actually see Aktobe. I promise to cheer on the second team” Walker answers. But what in the world is it who gets a statistician who works in the English government administration to decide say to make such a crazy one project like this?

“Well, I love to travel I have our in 82 countries from before. And so love I soccer in all the countries I visit, I always try to come on battle. Football is best “live”. When you are in the grave it is not the games you watched on TV you will remember – they are what you saw the stand” he says. But just as important to me is that football is a great one way to meet people.

So I came here to Bergen, asked I immediately about where one met Brann fans. I was led straight to the football pub. The bartender put me in contact Gert. Gert was one super awesome, big Brann fan. For regular bus driver, I mean he said. He introduced me look for the hard core like stands behind one goal and suddenly was my seat ticket made up? A stand with them. It was when I did not want to tell about the result in the first matches mine, not before Brann led comfortably, he hugs.

Football is disarming, something to talk about. You come in people in a completely different way in football than usual tourist. I was in Cairo in 2011, and the most authentic experience that’s when I saw Champions League finals on a bunch there. All the men smoked and everyone had comfy smiles. Matt who is a capable photographer and takes the pictures of the book itself. He has taken a one-year-old leave from work to visit the 55 countries and write the book. I travel and live quite cheaply, spending money, and fortunately, a boss is a football player. He just said that “this do you have to complete!”

Follow Matt’s journey on «55FootballNations» on social media.

Crazy plan: Matt Walker, Fulham fan from London, will visit all 55 member countries in UEFA and see an elite race everywhere, and he’ll do it before the World Cup next summer! “I’ve done now Away from four countries, but there’s a lot that can go wrong on the road”, he says. The Fulham supporter obviously took a few more days in Bergen. Here he is at Brann training yesterday

True globetrotter: Gori Fortress in Gori, Georgia. Georgia. Is a wonderful mix of old and new, says Walker

At the stadium:  Mood atmosphere where I stood, a little pampered otherwise. 200 kroner for a ticket is not much, you come to battle, says Walker.