Usain Bolt is training alongside at least a fourth different club soccer team across three continents this year, working out with Strømsgodset of Norways’ top division, the Eliteserien, for the next week.
Bolt is preparing for a June 10 charity match at Manchester United’s Old Trafford with other celebrities and retired soccer players. But he has also expressed a desire to play professional soccer.
Bolt, who wore No. 9.58 in training (signifying his 100m world record), will play with Strømsgodset in a training match against Norway’s under-19 national team on Tuesday, according to the club.
“I want to try to get better, to work as hard as I can, play as much as I can,” Bolt said, according to a Reuters translation of a Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang report. “Maybe a club will see something and decide to give me a chance.”
Bolt said he wants to play “in a top league.”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s La Liga, English league, Bundesliga, I’m OK with that,” Bolt said March 23. “I just want to prove to the world anything is possible.”
Earlier in 2018, Bolt trained alongside club teams in South Africa and Jamaica, plus the much publicized visit with Borussia Dortmund in March. Bolt, Dortmund and Strømsgodset share an apparel sponsor in Puma.
Bolt said in April he would return to Dortmund to “work with them for three more weeks” for another assessment of his prospects of becoming a professional soccer player.
“It’s a big deal,” Bolt said in April. “Everyone feels like I’m just kicking it around, I’m joking, but I’m serious. I’m actually going back to Dortmund in a couple of weeks, to work with them for three more weeks, just to assess myself at the better level to see what level I’m at or what I need to do or if I can [do it].”
Dortmund’s coach, Peter Stoeger, said March 23 that Bolt had work ahead if he wanted to become a pro.
“He is at an age where I say he is no longer so incredibly capable of development,” Stoeger said, according to The Associated Press. “You can see that he understands the game. He’s talented. What he’s missing is the team work.”
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