The Green Hope boys’ soccer team was devastated. The Falcons had just lost in the semifinals of the state playoffs to Broughton in overtime, 1-0. And after coach Andrew Chadwick consoled his team on the painful loss and told them how proud he was of them, one player stepped forward and said, “Can I say something coach?”

“And [the player] said, ‘I just wanted to tell everybody for a couple of years I no longer liked soccer and I was going to quit, but I had so much fun with this team and loved playing with every one of my teammates and this was such a fun adventure that it brought back my love for soccer,’” Chadwick said. “And we were all emotionally drained and exhausted, and I was trying to keep the water works back.”

Magnus Sorensen hadn’t enjoyed soccer for a while. The game he had played since he was a young boy was no longer fun and his heart was not in it. He found himself sitting on the bench for one of the top teams in Denmark, while his teammates got contracts, wondering what he was doing there.

Then Sorensen’s parents suggested he spend a year as a student in America, living with an old friend, Green Hope sophomore Jared Girard. The pair had known each other since they were 8 when they both played for the ’91 CASL Elite. Sorensen and his family had lived in Raleigh at the time but they moved back to Blovstrod, Denmark, three years later.

The duo had remained friends over the years with telephone calls and Sorensen even returned for a brief visit. The families arranged Sorensen’s year abroad through an external organization, but as the departure date drew near, he had second thoughts. Sorensen was about to back out but Girard persuaded him otherwise.

“It kind of frightened me in a way, just to be away from your parents a whole year,” Sorensen said. “At first I kind of rejected it but after I started talking to Jared, he was talking about how it was going over here. It was just really tempting to go over here. Finally I just said it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I’ll remember this for the rest of my life so I might as well take advantage of it.”

So far, Sorensen said he has not regretted his decision.

Not only did he help guide the Falcons to a 20-3-2 record and to the semifinals of the state playoffs, but he also led the team with 12 assists and tied for a team-high 18 goals.

But it wasn’t just goals and assists Sorensen brought to Green Hope this season, it was also his passion and intensity for the game.

“He brought the level up so much more, yelling and trying to get everybody going,” Girard said. “Before games he would be clapping and pumping everybody up. He told us that’s what they do in Denmark and it kinda got everybody going just a little bit.”

When Girard approached Chadwick last year about a soccer-playing exchange student coming from Denmark, the coach was apprehensive. He gets an e-mail almost every summer from foreign exchange students wishing to tryout for the team and said most of them are never very good.

But it didn’t take long for Chadwick to realize Sorensen wasn’t a typical exchange student.

“He tried out and I knew within 10 minutes he was going to make the team,” Chadwick said.

Not only was Sorensen the best technical player on the team, he was also one of the most coachable, Chadwick said. He said Sorensen never questioned him when he asked him to do something, like switching from his natural position of offensive midfielder to forward to give the Falcons a scoring boost.

“He’s probably had much better coaches than I am but any time I talked to him about something he never questioned it and said, ‘OK coach I’ll do that for you’ because he knew that one piece that I asked him to do was part of a larger plan I had for the team,” Chadwick said.

Chadwick said Sorensen will be sorely missed next year and he thinks daily about how he will have to move things around to compensate for the loss. But the coach said he has a plan to keep Sorensen in the country and playing for Green Hope.

“I’ve told the boys we have to get him a brunette girlfriend,” Chadwick said, joking. “We can’t find him some beautiful blonde, we have to find him some beautiful brunette because I’m sure Denmark is just full of blondes.”

Sorensen said high school soccer has been one of the most fun experiences of his life, especially since Denmark has no high school sports. But he misses his family. He e-mails and calls them frequently, and his dad came over to visit during the season.

And even though Sorensen said the American culture fits him, that doesn’t mean there haven’t been cultural differences. Girard said Sorensen dresses very European and his dad teases him for wearing tight pants. Sorensen, on the other hand, thinks Americans are very superstitious. Chadwick said Sorensen’s choice of techno music for the team’s warmup CD was a little different from the rock and hip hop tunes typically picked.

Girard also said Sorensen was a little overwhelmed by the size of Green Hope on his first day of school, but now he has settled in. Sorensen said his favorite classes are U.S. history and team sports, which he has with Girard, and said everyone has been very friendly, which helped his transition into the world of American high school.

“That’s the great thing about America because in Denmark we tend to be very arrogant and not as open,” Sorensen said. “And here people have been so open and they’ll talk to you and it really makes you feel welcome.”

Now that the high school soccer season is over Sorensen will join Girard on his former team, the ’91 CASL Elite, and finish out the school year at Green Hope before going back to Denmark.

Girard said it will be hard when Sorensen leaves next summer. The two have grown closer during this experience and feel like brothers. They have learned each other’s peculiar quirks and habits, for better or for worse, and warmed up together before every game.

But it wasn’t just Girard whom Sorensen grew close to this fall. It was also the Green Hope soccer team, which is why Sorensen’s speech at the end of the Broughton game was so emotional for everyone.

“It was dead on just about how soccer was tough for him before he came and this year was so good for everybody and this was the most fun he’s ever had playing soccer,” Girard said. “That last speech was a tear-jerker; it was tough.”

And it wasn’t just the coach and Sorensen’s teammates fighting back tears.

“I was kinda emotional after the game,” Sorensen said. “Probably because we lost and I felt like we could have won. And also, it was my last game for Green Hope and it’s just been such a great experience with these guys playing soccer, cards, golf and all this stuff with them. It’s just weird to say now I don’t really play soccer with you guys anymore. I was kinda crying and just said thank you for such a great experience.”