Lars Karlsson: CapacityNow

Congratulations Portugal! Portugal won their first ever title yesterday when beating France 1-0 in the EuroCup 2016 final. 

France was the better team, more possession, more chances. France was the team that wanted to score. However, Portugal did a heroic game. They were under pressure most of the game and got their captaon and big dtar Christiano Ronaldo injured after only 14 minutes. 

We saw Christianos tears again. Just like in 2004 at home in Lissabon when Portugal was favourites to win the EuroCup title against Greece. That time Portugal lost 1-0. This time they won. 

The Portugal coach Fernando Santos outmanourered the French coach Didier Dechamp, and the Portugal goal keeper Rui Patricio was amazing all of the final. 

And it was all about CR7, Christiano Ronaldo. Even if he had to leave the game already early, he stayed on the sideline acting like a second coach, pushing his team mates the extra mile.

At the end of the day Ronaldo – by most people considered the best player in the world right now – finally got his trophy, a title for his national team under his years as a world class player and during two golden generations of Portugese players expected to win titles. 

It was a happy ending for Portugal, even though I personally cheered for my second home country France. 

I felt sorry for the young French team playing and losing a final at home in Paris. Griezmann became top scorer, Untiti and Payet were both big players during the tournament and Lloris was one of the ebst goal keepers, Pogba is the future dtar – but the best player of the final (both teams included) was Sissoko. He did a fantastic game – and still lost. 

EuroCup 2016 is over. Now we wait for the World Cup in Russia 2018. 

We used to always see the poverty gap as the big gap in the world. This is still a huge issue, especially for the leadt developed countries (LDCs) and in years with draught and other disasters. 

However as proven by the Millenium Development Goals Agenda, it is possible today to address the issue of poverty and the world is getting better in this sense. It is possible to erase poverty. We are the generation that will do it. This is our priority. 

Having said this, we need to start acknowledging that there are new gaps emerging. 

One of the biggest challenges for the future is the digital divide – the lack of access to Internet and the opportunities given by the new netwroks and technolgies. While we know that there today are more people in the developing world with access to smart phones than to clean water, there is a huge part of the world population that are shut out from the most important communication platform ever know to mankind. These people are not only left out of the communities, social media, information flow, but more importantly they are without access to faster procesing, paperless effecient systems, information demands and requirements from the international supply chain and thus trade to new markets, new digital work opportunities, education, transparency, langauges, applications, software, democracy and freedom of speech on the internet and much more. 

This means that we have created new borders, new gaps and new divide. We need to realize that this is the case and learn from our past to overbridge this new gap. Sweden has suported a number of developing countries with aid for digital infrastructure. More countries need to do the same. 

UNCTAD has acknowledged and started to address the issue of digital divide and the new digital infrastructure gap.

This is a great initiative by UNCTAD and we need to ensure that other international institutions do the same. 

We should instead build bridges of inclusiveness. This is a benefit for all of us. 

We need a world that is fully connected to free the creativity of people to contribute to the greater good of our global village. 

The future is digital. Let’s make it a better and more inclusive future than the old world was.

Tonight France and Portugal play the final of EuroCup 2016. Who will win? I think that it is very close. The teams have 50/50 opportunity – though France as the host maybe is a small favourite to win the title. It will be CR7 – Christiano Ronaldo vs Antoine Griezmann. 

It has been an interesting tournament, but maybe not the best tournement ever. There have been some great games, especially at the end of the tournament. 

We have seen smaller teams surprise their opponents with strong tactics and team efforts, like Wales (Galles) and Iceland. We have also seen great referees this time. 

In addition a new superstar has been born, Antoine Griezmann of France.

Griezmann has been fantastic, like his young team mates Pogba, Umtiti and Payet. In Portugal Renato Sanches has performed very well as the new star born this summer. 

I love football/soccer. I always have. It is for me the ‘beautiful game’ – joga bonito, as they say in Brazil. 

Some of you might know that I used to be an athlete playing sports in my youth. My sport was Olympic Team Handball. A very tough and physical in-doors game that is big on Europe. I was a good player, also playing internationally. I still enjoy watching this sport a lot, but I have always loved football. 

I did play also football on lower levels between handball seasons, but I didn’t have the same talent for football as for handball. 

My favourite football players over time have always been the real characters and technical players, like Diego Amando Maradona, Eric Cantona and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. The players that can do the extra on the pitch, leaders and decisive players.

However I have always also liked the defensive midfield player, maybe since this was my own position when playing football. 

This has always been a sort of controversial and non-attractive role in the team, the player that is there to protect the own team and destroy the chances for the opponents. A low key player of the team, making it possible for the stars to steal the headlines – the so called ‘water-carrier’. 

It was one of my heroes, French star Eric Cantona that once invented the word ‘water-carrier’ about his team mate and present French national team coach Didier Dechamps. It was naturally said at the time as an arrogant sort of ‘insult’, pointing out that Dechamp wasn’t a quality football player like some other players, but only a guy there to carry the water bottles for the real star players. 

Now we know that there have been very few successful teams without a really good ‘water-carrier’. 

The last years we have seen fantastic defensive midfielders in great teams like Gennaro Gattuso in Italy, Dunga in Brazil, Sami Khedira in Germany and  Sergio Busquets of Spain. 

I think that the best defiensive midfielder in the EuroCup2016 has been Paul Pogba of France. 

The best defiensive midfielder is probably another French player, Claude Makalele – who did 71 caps for France and was a fundamental player for Real Madrid, Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain. I loved to see Makalele play. 

Maybe I was the Makalele of my old football team, but mostly since I always considered myself as a team player. 

I have always believed that the team is bigger than the individual, in sports, at work and in life. So this is also how I have managed in my professional life. I will continue to do so alsonin the future.

So who will win the final tonight? I think that France wins 1-0 or 2-1. Griezmann will score the final goal. This is his tournament.