Morten Andersen grew up playing soccer, then turned out to be so good at kicking American-style footballs that tonight he’ll be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. That’s a good story, but the NFL and the Hall of Fame made a big mistake when trying to tell that story.
In the official video shown when Andersen received his gold jacket and posted on social media by the NFL, a narrator says, “The soccer player from Denmark first kicked an American football in high school.” As those words are spoken, a soccer team picture is shown, with one player highlighted.
One problem: That player isn’t Andersen. Another problem: Andersen never even played for the team pictured. A third problem: The team pictured comes from Norway, not Denmark.
As explained by the Norwegian news site Nettavisen, the player highlighted in the photo is a Norwegian named Roar Strand, who played for Norway’s national team from 1994 to 2003, long after Andersen’s NFL career had begun.
So it’s a photo of the wrong player on the wrong team from the wrong country, and at the time the photo was taken, Andersen was already in the NFL. Apparently whoever was tasked with tracking down a picture of Morten Andersen in a soccer uniform isn’t very proficient with Google Images.