“It’s such a beautiful thing that this ball can connect people,” Josefine (Josie) Hasbo ’25 stated to the Harvard Independent.
If you were scrolling through Sidechat over summer break, there is a high chance you came across a post about this soccer phenomenon. A junior on Harvard Women’s Soccer, Hasbo was recently selected to represent Denmark at the recent FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia. She appeared in all four games, including their round of 16 loss to the host nation. What those Sidechat posts did not show you is the sacrifice and dedication Hasbo has put into her soccer career as well as her pure love for the game.
Hasbo’s first team at age seven was coached by her best friend’s father, but as she grew older, she needed a much more serious (ergo less convenient) option. Starting in 2013, she needed to commute an hour to train at the Ballerup-Skovlunde Football Club, a much more elite program located in Ballerup, Denmark. This switch enabled her to join the national team system as only a select number of club programs in Denmark have the ability to recommend players for national team tryouts. Hasbo stood out from the start, beginning with the U-15 regional team, and eventually earned her spot on the Danish National team after years with their junior squads.
Hasbo set her aspirations to Harvard for the first time after an international travel trip with her club team to Texas. After going through the recruitment process, Hasbo said that Harvard allowed her to “get the best of so many worlds in one place.” While the cross-country relocation and shift to collegiate-style soccer posed numerous challenges for her national team schedule, Hasbo emphasized the importance of “trying to do what she can do within her control.” Last semester, Hasbo was absent from campus around 25% of the time because she was traveling back and forth between Denmark to compete with the National Team. Reflecting on her two years of experience, Hasbo says she is grateful that she has “managed to compete on the world stage while being part of this fantastic place.”
“The Harvard women’s soccer program and coaching staff [have] been fundamental for my transition here, coming from speaking only Danish into a new environment with new people, new language, new cultures,” she said. “I’m very grateful for having that as a core here.”
She began her World Cup journey with a qualifying game against Montenegro in September 2022. After being released by the Harvard coaches to go compete, Hasbo made a significant impact, playing 45 minutes of the game and scoring the 5th goal in Denmark’s 5-1 win. She continued to attend training camps in France and Denmark and scored in Denmark’s game against Norway at the Tournai de France. After finishing the semester in May, Hasbo returned to Denmark to train with her club team and the larger World Cup roster before making the final selection at the end of June.
Hasbo was on a plane to Australia 14 days before Denmark’s first match against China. While adapting to the weather and time difference in Perth, she attributes much enjoyment to her ability to gain new cultural experiences off the field. After Denmark’s 1-0 win against China, the team moved to Sydney, where they played and lost to England in front of 45,000 fans. Following a 2-0 victory over Haiti, Denmark moved into the knock-out rounds where they faced host nation Australia. As Hasbo shares, with “75,000 people in the stands, all in yellow,” she felt “the culmination of how well the women’s game has progressed through this tournament.” The team was on a plane back to Denmark within ten hours of the final whistle-blowing.
When describing the environment after leaving Australia, Hasbo stated that in the midst of the Cup, “everything is magnified—your feelings, your thoughts, because everything matters so much. You fight for your country, you go all in, and you want to perform at your best.” Now that she has been able to spend time with family and friends back in Denmark, she has returned to Cambridge to begin training with the team again in hopes of an Ivy League championship and NCAA Tournament berth.
Despite participating in one of the most spectated and high-level athletic events, Hasbo’s college experience resembles many of ours. She balances her schoolwork with her personal and sporting schedules and articulates that there is no right way to be a student (or athlete) here. Her words of advice are, “Seek inspiration but also be mindful that the things people are doing around you are not necessarily what will work for you. Take time out of your fast-paced schedules to reflect and try out things you wouldn’t do, because that is where your development and growth take place. I have been so out of my comfort zone [at Harvard] but I have also grown so much. Enjoy the ride!”
Kate Oliver ’26 (koliver@college.harvard.edu) cannot juggle a soccer ball.