Denmark is a rather small country. And even though football is by far the sport in Denmark with the largest fan base, the Superliga players do not have many social media followers compared to top players in other countries. However, that certainly changed when AGF (currently 5th in best Danish division, the ALKA Superliga) signed the Iraqi national player from Örebro Ahmed Yasin.
According to the regional newspaper Århus Stiftstidende, Ahmed Yasin is the player in the Superliga with the most followers on Instagram: 45,000. The typical amount of likes for a picture posted on his account is 2,500. Not even the Danish national captain Daniel Agger has half the amount of Instagram followers as Yasin – though, he does have 800,000 followers on twitter, not least because of his many years playing for Liverpool FC. In comparison, Tom Kristensen (who won Le Man nine(!) times) has 30,000 Instagram followers, and the multiple female swimming world champion Jeanette Ottesen has 20,000.
Ahmed Yasin has 114,000 followers on Facebook and 125,000 on Twitter. And his Ronaldo-like appearance with a cute face and an extremely fit body, also makes him very popular with the ladies. “I always get the most likes for shirtless pictures,” Ahmed says with a grin on his face.
Iraqis living in Denmark want to see their national hero
If you follow #AY9 (because he plays with no. 9 in the Iraqi national team) on social media, be it Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, you will not see an athlete taking any kind of political or judgmental stance. You will simply get an insight into the daily life of Ahmed Yasin, with training, diet, social life – and not least – football! Because if you think Ahmed Yasin is called “The Iraqi Ronaldo” merely because of his notional resemblance with the Portuguese superstar himself, you are most certainly in thw wrong. Do not doubt the quality of Yasin’s work on the training ground nor his technical skills and fitness on the pitch. AGF’s new no. 14 (#AY14?) is definitely a great asset to the football fans in Aarhus – which he demonstrated just a few weeks ago when scoring his first goal (a long-shot beauty) against the defending Danish champions AaB.
“I try to reply to people who write to me on social media, but I get 1,000 messages everyday, so I just can’t get back to them all. Many send me encouraging messages and ask me for advice on training,” Ahmed Yasin says in today’s Århus Stiftstidende.
The popularity of Yasin is also visible in the AGF fanshop, where the shop assistants have been busy lately packing original AGF jerseys with the number 14 and the name Yasin on the back in plastic bags for the enthusiastic football fans in Aarhus. And maybe there are even some new fans coming to Ceres Park to watch the home team now, as there seems to be many Danish-Iraqi people waiting for Ahmed Yasin after the matches to get a picture with him and an autograph. It is obviously an uplifting note for the Iraqis living in Denmark that they now have a local hero playing in the Danish Superliga. Rumour has it that some Iraqis even travel all the way from Copenhagen (which is a three-hour drive) to attend the games in Århus with the chance to see the national team player Ahmed Yasin chasing his dream of becoming a part of the regular start-11 squad for his new club, AGF.
Click these links to follow Ahmed Yasin on social media: Facebook, Twitter & Instagram
Tonight at 18:00 local time, AGF will take on Esbjerg (currently ranked 11th) on home ground. It is also the day of the opening of the annual event ‘Århus Festuge’, which means even more spectators are expected to attend the game. The theme for this year’s Festuge is “light” – so if you get a chance to watch the game, watch out for certain elements of light shining from the stands.
This text was inspired by the piece “Ahmed Yasin er en digital superstjerne” by Dennis Bjerre Christiansen published in Århus Stiftstidende on 28 August 2015. For the original text (in Danish), follow this link.
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