EXERT & EXHALE
Magnus Rasmussen
A Story Sweeter Than a Danish
BY KEVIN KERNEN | COURTESY PHOTOS
AS IS THE STORY with most Louisville City FC
players, Magnus Rasmussen is a fan favorite. As is
also the case with most LouCity players, “MagRam”
isn’t a stranger to the pitch either, getting plenty
of time on the field along with just about every
other player on this lean roster.
It isn’t his playing time, his chiseled,
Scandanavian good looks, nor his deft touch
that have earned him a place in the hearts of
Louisville City fans. No, it’s largely thanks to the
midfielder’s actions from nearly three years ago.
On March 28, 2015, Magnus scored the first
goal in Louisville City FC’s competitive history,
the winning goal in a 2-0 triumph over Saint Louis
FC. It was a day of many firsts: first competitive
match for either club, the first win in club history
40 EXTOL : JUNE/JULY 2018
and the first professional match for Magnus outside
of his native Denmark.
The journey for Magnus began from a young
age. After he outplayed most kids around him
in his kindergarten class, he was urged onto a
bigger club, when he would go to school from
eight in the morning until two in the afternoon
and practice in the early evening, spending the
interim playing soccer in the street around school.
After showing promise in Copenhagen’s youth
football scene, Magnus signed his first contract at
the tender age of 15, joining the Danish Superliga
team Nordsjaelland, a relatively new team in the
domestic top tier who pride themselves on youth
development in particular.
After playing nearly every game available in
his youth career, Magnus became a victim of his
senior team’s success when Nordsjaelland won the
2011-12 season of the Superliga, which qualified
them for the top club competition on the European
continent, the Champions League. Winning the
league and earning automatic qualification to the
group stage of the Champions League comes with
a sizeable influx in cash (they earned 20,402,000
Euro, per UEFA.com). Nordsjaelland, who play in
front of about 10,000 fans on average, were drawn
into a group with the Champions League title
holders Chelsea FC, perennial Italian powerhouse
Juventus and Ukrainian giants Shakhtar Donetsk.
With the incoming money, Nordsjaelland manager
Kasper Hjulmand and the team looked to build
a more international roster and compete in the
continental competition. None of this boded