Happy Birthday to Barca Legend, Michael Laudrup. 60 years today. For that reason, there is a new interview reflecting on his career. It’s in Danish, but it’s worth reading if you google-translate the whole page.

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1. **Michael Laudrup turns 60 years old. TV 2 Sport brings a large and exclusive interview with the Danish football legend.**

   You can’t just see it – it’s only because you know it.

   Still dressed in the present and far from the past. In top form here, where only the day is round.

   He sits so calmly that you think he is clipped. He is rarely out of control. He sits with an aura that never draws attention to himself. Everyone wants to get hold of him. But Michael Laudrup is himself – and his family’s.

   He fills us all. An almost royal in the world of football. He fills up – with good memories dating back to before he was a confirmation student. He fills up – like the one who always wants to get out of the sport of honour. He turns – 60 years old.

   *Most crown a new digit in the birthday order: “It’s just a number after all”. Isn’t there more to it?*

   – I have always looked at my friends, including football friends, who are 10-15 years older than me. Are they fit? Are they well? Do they work? And that’s what it’s all about for me. Not the age. I have used that, knowing that a new number comes in front when you turn a new decade. So for me it’s a number, and I haven’t had any problems with turning 50 or 40 – and not now either”.

   *You’ve had a football life – or still do. In what way has it filled beyond results and trophies?*

   – Football has been and always will be a big part of my life. I love football. From the time I was six years old and playing football, until I joined selected teams, big clubs, national teams and later old boys, coaching jobs and as now commentators. So it has always filled a lot. But there are also phases in life. When I stopped coaching six years ago, I had a feeling that it was. It was definitely enough.

   # Definitely finished as a coach

   *Why?*

   – I have a completely new life. Now I have five grandchildren. I can’t imagine living and being a coach in another country and only having to see them on the phone on FaceTime.

   – It is no longer a job, but a way of life, where there is still some football for me with commentary, but also a life with the family, which has now become a different kind of family. Before, it was about our children. Now it is also our grandchildren. A completely different kind of family…that’s something that means a lot.

   *So your stop as a coach six years ago is definitive?*

   – Yes, it definitely is.

   – I recently had a talk with Jorge Valdano, who was my coach at Real Madrid. We talked about how much football meant to us. He said that if he had more than one life, one would be exclusively football as a player and coach. But we don’t have that, so it’s about getting as much out of what you also want in life, in time.

   *How do you find out when it is “on time”?*

   – Years ago I had a conversation with Luis Aragones, who was active as a player and coach for 51 years. The man behind Spain’s European Championship gold in 2008. I asked if he had ever had a long break from football. “Yes”, he said, thinking about it. “Four months once.” He was over 70 years old and had been a coach for 37 years. Now he just wanted to take one more job, and then he was looking forward to stopping and trying something else. He didn’t make it, died soon after. It just emphasized that there are some choices – and some opt-outs. And we only live once.

   *Was it something you thought about? That you can stay too long in the coaching job? Do you become addicted to it?*

   – You become dependent on the coaching job when it goes from being a job to a lifestyle. It was not in the air that I would go the coaching route when I stopped my active career. But then Morten (Olsen, ed.), who was to be national coach from the summer of 2000, asked if I would not be his assistant. So I gave that a chance, and then you’re in a rumble, which in a way makes you addicted.

   – This was in 2000, and – with a few breaks along the way – then suddenly it was 2018. It was not meant to continue, but it is a world where there is always a new job. If you want, there is always a new job.

2. Not a barca legend