Captain Eirin plays the long game
|Seoul 2024 Homeless World Cup captain Eirin Erlandsen will on the sidelines this summer when the Homeless World Cup returns to Oslo. Image: Angelica Ibarra Rodriguez
By Isobel Irvine
Returning to Oslo for this year’s tournament will complete a full circle moment for Eirin Erlandsen. She not only captained the Norwegian women’s national side in Seoul 2024 - leading them to a FIFPro fair play accolade and being awarded a Whistle of Hope herself - but was a volunteer when the city hosted the event back in 2017. Her relationship with football, however, stretches back much further.
“I have played soccer since I was seven years old,” she explains. “It was just me playing with the boys in my free time after school - I was better than some of the boys back then! I stopped playing for a couple of years when I was 14, then went back to it again when I was 16.
“I wanted to keep playing football but then, when I started to have problems, no one would take me into their team…”
Eirin’s voice trails off as she reflects on the time when she began to feel insecure, started to be overwhelmed by anxiety and spiralled into depression.
“Then I got involved with the wrong friends and got into drugs, smoking weed, taking narcotics and many other things. One thing leads to another. I tried to continue my eduction somewhere else but met the wrong people again,” she continues.
“I was in a very bad relationship when things were really difficult; the situation was so bad it was holding me back from everything in life.”
Eventually Eirin was admitted to rehab which removed her from the negative environment and gave her the courage to start to turn her life around. “It was the escape from all my problems - that’s 14 years ago now.”
Through getting involved with the street football programme in Norway, Gatefotball during rehab she became a volunteer when Homeless World Cup came to Oslo in 2017.
|From volunteer to captain of the national side, Eirin is excited to see the Homeless World Cup return to Oslo in August. Image: Anita Milas
“I’d heard all about it and it was as beautiful as I imagined,” she recalls. “I met all those wonderful people from other countries, all happy and smiling and enjoying being together - something I also saw here in Seoul. Despite all the problems people have, everyone is happy to be here.”
Eight years ago Eirin was involved as a substitute player for any team who had an injured player and took the field with sides ranging from Kenya to the Slovenian men.
“I had wanted to be in our national street soccer team for many years and that experience in Oslo inspired me even more,” she says. “However for the years after that I was taking exams, working and then Covid happened - but finally I am here!”
But Eirin had not only made it to the Korean capital as part of the team - she had been made captain.
“It’s a big honour to be captaining my country,” she enthuses. “You have to guide the other players in a direct way, so you have a good game; you have to be understanding, know the routines and be focussed. I have lots of experience to guide the younger players - in fact, two of them are young enough to be my daughters!”
Now employed helping youngsters with special needs, Eirin also has a grown-up daughter of her own - “She used to play football but then she had to do her military service and is now studying to be a vet,” - and is playing in the league for her home team in Kristiansand.
Oslo 2025 is firmly circled in her calendar, however, and though she won’t be participating - players can only represent their country once at the tournament - she’s looking forward to helping in any way she can.
“I have a much better life than I had before, thanks to football, and my only addiction now is for street soccer - that is a good addiction I will have for ever.”
Norway is represented by Frelsesarmeen (The Salvation Army) in the Homeless World Cup Network. The 2025 Oslo Homeless World Cup will take place from 23-30th August in the Norwegian capital. It was previously held there in 2017.