If you didn’t know Greenland is playing international footballnow you do.
It’s this vast expanse of land that lies between North America and Europe, located mostly within the Arctic Circle. You can’t miss it on a map, but few know much more about Greenland than its name.
This is a completely unique place. It is classified as the world’s largest island and yet it is also the most sparsely populated of any country on earth. About 80% of the land is covered by an ice cap, and the rest receives persistent snow for up to eight months of the year.
The 56,000 or so people who live in the harsh environment have cultivated strong feelings of community and a clear sense of identity. Even with the challenges that the harsh climate brings, football is at its heart, serving to connect people. More than one in ten play regularly.
Greenland is on the periphery of international football. The national federation, Kalaallit Arsaattartut Kattuffiat (KAK), is not a member of FIFA, but an application to join CONCACAF along with teams such as the United States, Mexico and Canada was submitted in May and is pending.
Greenland will be able to play in officially recognized international matches and compete in World Cup qualifiers. But it means more than that. “Young people can look at us and see that it is possible to be a high-level soccer player in Greenland. It’s a big dream for me to give it to them,” said head coach Morten Rutkjaer. BBC Sport when the CONCACAF application was entered.
In September, the national team entered into a four-year partnership with Hummel, who have now created a stunning new home kit directly inspired by Greenlandic culture.
“In Greenland, soccer is more than a game – it’s a community,” explained Morten Lund, marketing director at hummel.
“It bridges genders, generations and professions, reminding us that despite vast geographical distances, we are stronger together. That’s why the new national team jersey is also a symbol of the pride, strength and community spirit that encapsulates the spirit of Greenlanders ».
Greenlandic heritage and culture are woven directly into the fabric of the shirt.
It is, in itself, a Greenlandic celebration, patterned with tupilaks and tuukkaq’er symbols, rooted in local mythology, representing strength and spiritual guidance and courage respectively.
There is a tribute to arts and crafts, with avittat motifs also appearing – they are commonly found in national costumes and kamik, a type of footwear commonly worn by the indigenous people of the Arctic.
The red body and white side panels, meanwhile, represent the colors of the national flag: red and white horizontal halves with inverted red and white semicircles. The classic hummel bumblebee and unmistakable double chevron complete the overall look.
“It tells the story of who we are as a people and what we stand for. It symbolizes our culture, our history and the strong community created by football,” said Kenneth Kleist, president of KAK.
Greenland, so relatively unknown – just 130,000 visitors a year – largely due to a previous lack of widespread accessibility, wants to share itself and its culture with the wider world.
In the capital Nuuk, a rebuilt airport with the new capability to handle international flights opened in late November, connecting the city directly to Copenhagen. Other itineraries to New York and Iceland will soon follow. Previously, traveling to Nuuk, a picturesque setting of colorful wooden cottages overlooking the sea, required a transfer about 200 miles north to a remote former US military base. Another remote former base in the far south did similar work.
“We’ve been shut off from the whole world and now we’re going to open up to the world,” was how one resident summed up the situation in BBC recently.
It has already been estimated that each flight could add $200,000 (£157,000) to Greenland’s economy, while travel in a country with just 56 miles of paved roads will be opened up much further through two more international airports, one in the north and one in the south , in 2026.
Soccer, a truly universal language, is Greenland’s other vehicle for sharing itself with the world.
