Michael Laudrup: a portrait of an icon

Long before Denmark produced the supremely gifted Christian Eriksen, they gave the world one of the most elegant players in the history of the game

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The theory of collective intelligence is well-established. The “wisdom of the crowd” principle states that the averaged answer of a group of individuals outweighs that of a single expert on matters of spatial awareness, quantity estimation and general knowledge. It was first mooted by Aristotle, and has been continued by philosophers, statisticians and economists pretty much ever since. It is one good reason why juries and panels exist.

Without offending Aristotle, the Marquis de Condorcet and Francis Galton, Michael Laudrup’s lack of international recognition erodes confidence in the principle. Between 1989 and 1996, Denmark’s greatest ever player was European football’s finest footballer. Not only did European journalists fail to award Laudrup with France Football’s Ballon D’Or; he never even made the top three. That is an absolute travesty and Pep Guardiola agrees: “I just can’t believe he hasn’t won the title as best player in the world.”

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