Lecce, Morten Hjulmand unveils his model
Morten Hjulmand reveals who he is inspired by.
Lecce captain Morten Hjulmand indulged in a lengthy interview with la Gazzetta dello Sport in which he talked about his new experience in Salento and also revealed his role model as a player.
“My dream now is to save myself with Lecce,” Hjulmand began, “I fell in love with Lecce. I live in the historic center, I am getting to know the surroundings. I love the sea, I love Santa Caterina, above Gallipoli. There is always fresh fish. Me, my fiancée Emilie and our dog Olau are doing great here.”
“The growth has been there. Now you can see the real Lecce. I suffered the expulsion with Roma where we lost in ten. In some games we were unlucky. Against Bologna and Juventus we did not do well. But then we really started to do well together. The last step was missing. We have grown in intensity, we go lower, we go more into the opponents’ camp and we take the man all the time. We try to verticalize a lot, Banda is growing and Strefezza is very strong. The first one goes to play one-on-one, the other one if he gets the ball between the lines does a lot of good things,” continued the Salentini director.
He then analyzed his role, revealing his pattern: “I always stay close to the opponent with the idea of taking the ball away from him. I go for man and ball to help the team. I think I have improved the defensive phase. Now we are in A and it is a whole different story compared to B. I work a lot, I watch videos, the level has risen a lot, especially physically. Model? Inter’s Brozovic. I tried to learn a lot from him. When I see how he catches the ball, it’s a pleasure. Then he is always close to the defenders.”
He then expressed himself this way about the burden of being captain: “I like it, but I think about being a footballer. Against Cittadella in the Coppa Italia nothing had been decided yet, then I was given the armband at the first match with Inter. Coach Baroni told me ‘You are the captain.’ Doing that means always being there, but there are also other people here with strong personalities. I always speak in Italian, because it is right for foreigners to learn. Then, clear, that inside the locker room, English is also spoken.”
And speaking of English, he revealed a great passion of his: “I am crazy about the Premier League. I am an Arsenal fan. Arteta in two years has changed everything, the mentality, now they play very well. Great intensity. Greater than Serie A, which I really like because I see very strong players with so much quality. I wanted the Serie A.”
