Are all players accounted for??? I am speaking primarily of Germans, Norwegians, Swedes, Finns and Danes who frequent Thailand. (Though any international players could be at risk.) I would think the Euro soccer sites would have reassured us or posted at least a brief statement, but I have read nothing. Not that I am only soccer-centered; obviously we are all horrified about the disaster, period. But it would be nice if someone in the league(s) would bother to do a head count, contact the players and clubs and make this known to the public! If anyone has any pertinent information, posting would be appreciated.
I thought of this too, because the only people I know who typically vacation in places like Phuket around Christmas time are either Norwegian or are married to Norwegians. According to the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs the official Norwegian death toll now stands at 21, but there are 430 Norwegians who are considered to be officially missing. The first player I thought of in connection with this disaster was Gro Espeseth. When I first met Gro during the 2001 WUSA season, she told me about how her and her boyfriend had just spent their winter vacation in Thailand. I'm really concerned about a Norwegian friend who used to be my hairdresser in San Diego. She married someone from New York while she was living here and then moved with him back to Stavanger, Norway. Then about five years ago they moved to Phuket and I haven't had any contact with her or her husband in about two years now. I just took a break and went searching for an e-mail address for them and managed to find one on my old Macintosh computer that I more or less stopped using about two years ago. Sadly when I sent an e-mail to this Thailand address I immediately received a reply with the subject "Mail delivery failed: returning message to sender" that said that the e-mail had been sent to an "Unrouteable address."
That could just mean the email address is old, so don't give up. Maybe what could help in the short term is for everyone who has a moment to email the major soccer sites and ask them to do do a quick check to see if all players & coaches are accounted for.
I hope that this is the case. When they were last visiting San Diego a few years ago there were some comments made about Phuket not quite being the paradise they thought it was when they were just visiting as tourists. For all I know they could have decided to move back to Norway. In any event, I did a google search on the husband of my friend and came up with a Norwegian e-mail address for someone whose guest book he had signed a few years ago. I just e-mailed this person in Norway and will hopefully get some positive news from him. This is a good idea. This also gives me an excuse to e-mail Gro Espeseth and let her know that I was thinking about her and see if she has any updates about any of her former teammates on the Norwegian National Team.
The person I e-mailed in Norway wrote back to me immediately and had some very good news. The family I know moved back from Phuket to Stavanger, Norway 1 1/2 years ago and everyone is safe and sound. He also had the phone number for them and I just spend the past 40 minutes talking to my friend's husband. We mainly talked about the disaster and the fact that their 14 year old daughter is actually there right now in Phuket visiting friends , but we also talked a little about Norwegian fotball as well. One of the things I hadn't read about the new women's head coach Berntsen was that he had actually been fired by the Viking club earlier this year. I had gotten the impression that he was still with Viking and was going to have to leave his job there to take this new position with the National Team.
The person I e-mailed in Norway wrote back to me immediately and had some very good news. The family I know moved back from Phuket to Stavanger, Norway 1 1/2 years ago and everyone is safe and sound. He also had the phone number for them and I just spend the past 40 minutes talking to my friend's husband. We mainly talked about the disaster and the fact that their 14 year old daughter is there right now in Phuket visiting friends , but we also talked a little about Norwegian fotball as well. One of the things I hadn't read about the new women's head coach Berntsen was that he had actually been fired by the Viking club earlier this year. I had gotten the impression that he was still with Viking and was going to have to leave his job there to take this new position with the National Team.