After Madam Pang’s plea, former teammate Erling Haaland joined Thai U23

Thailand has summoned their best players at the U23 age group to get ready for the U23 Asian Cup finals in Uzbekistan. In the preliminary list of 30 people selected by coach Worrawoot Srimaka, notably Nicholas Kengkhetkid Mickelson. This is a defender born in Norway and plays for Odense BK club (with Jonathan Khemdee) in the Danish league.

Born in 1999, Mickelson has experienced all levels of the Norwegian youth team, from U16 to U21. As such, he was a regular teammate of Martin Odegaard and Erling Haaland. In a conversation with a ThSport reporter in 2020, Mickelson said that although he did not have a very close relationship, he had a good connection on the field to create many times for Haaland to score.

Also in this interview, Mickelson was quite open about the possibility of playing for Thailand, his mother’s hometown. But that scenario has not happened yet. Until the beginning of this year, the Thai people were determined to gather as many Thai-born players abroad as possible to strengthen the team.

Nicholas Mickelson was present with Thailand U23 to prepare for the AFC U23 Championship.

In April, managing the national team and U23, Madam Pang made video calls to convince Thai expatriates to return. And recently, on the eve of the U23 Asian Cup finals, she had another call to Mickelson, saying that Thailand U23 is lacking players and desperately needs the service of the 22-year-old defender.

This caused some controversy among fans of the Golden Temple, that Madam Pang’s begging action was necessary, and the appearance of foreign players really improved the quality of the team? However, many people were happy with the news that Mickelson agreed to take a flight from Denmark to Thailand to join U23 Thailand. Mainly playing at right-back, but Mickelson can play at center back or left-back. He is also appreciated for his ability to pass long, cross the ball and endurance.

According to the schedule, Thailand U23 will open the AFC U23 Championship with a match against Vietnam at 22:00 on June 2 at Milliy Stadium in Tashkent capital of Uzbekistan.