Recently, reporters with People's Daily Online interviewed Friis Arne Petersen, Danish Ambassador to China, in the Royal Danish Embassy in Beijing. He shared his opinions on football and the Brazil World Cup in the interview.

PD Online: What's your expectation of this World Cup?

Peterson: My expectation is that this World cup will be a fantastic world cup. I have seen some of the matches. And they have been very rich, very creative play, very offensive, a lot of goals, so very attractive soccer. Not the defense type of game where you try to win the match by just scoring one goal and defensing. So a very very good world cup, it seems like. The teams I think are fantastic.

PD Online: What's your favorite football team? Who is your favorite player?

Peterson: My favorite team I think is the Danish team. Unfortunately, this time we did not make to the world cup. And I really regret that. So my favorites are probably some of the European national teams like Germany, I saw this last night, in the middle of the night, playing very well. They may be against Brazil in the final. I also think the Netherlands, the Dutch play very well. It could be a repetition of the Dutch in the final against the whole Brazilians. My favorite player is Lionel Messi, like so many others. He plays extraordinarily well. He is clearly the unique talent in the world.

PD Online: In your opinion, which team will win the World Cup?

Peterson: I think it could be a final between Brazil and European countries, like France, Germany, Netherland. I would not be surprised it would be Netherland against the Brazil the whole country that has so many talented players. I would hope it would be a European team if it is the Germany against Brazil or France or Netherland. I hope it would be one of them win the match and be the world champion. I think we Europeans are good at playing soccer, and we have a good understanding of the game. The collective strategy is needed. The collective effort of the team but also the extraordinary efforts to go into being a good ball handler, a good player knowing how to play others and thereby get much more out of it by being a unit, by being a team, not individual players.