5 questions for former Colorado Rapids player Nat Borchers

George Tanner, Rocky Mountain News

Published February 24, 2007 at midnight

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Nat Borchers' three-season run with the Rapids began quickly and ended too soon for many fans. The Coloradan left for greener European pastures after the 2005 Major League Soccer season, and fans around here still miss him. But how has he been doing since he left? FC Rocky, a soccer blog authored by George Tanner, caught up with Borchers shortly before he headed to Spain for preseason training with Odd Grenland of Norway's top league.

1 Do you have any Norwegian music on your iPod?

There's one Norwegian song in my iPod that rocks: It's called Tore Tang, by a band called Mods. It's about an ugly old guy that plays the guitar. It is the only Norwegian song that I know how to sing.

2 Tell us about the food in Norway. Have you discovered something that you really enjoy?

The food in Norway? It's absolutely horrendous; I'm not kidding. I basically survive off salmon or chicken with a side of rice and steamed vegetables. I can't tell how the Norwegian people stay in such great shape; their diet consists of meat and potatoes for just about every meal. The Norwegian players all have terrible diets; I can't tell how they play professional soccer. It took a lot of finesse to get the club to start feeding us decent meals between trainings. There is a type of food that is exclusive to Norway that I do like. It's called ribbe. They are baked ribs, and they have this amazing crust that is out of this world.

3 OK, so maybe there's a food-related horror story you could share.

Yeah, I have a few. The best was after we had an away game against HamKam. After the game, we were given these 3-day-old egg and salmon sandwiches that were just absolutely rancid (courtesy of our equipment manager, who is in his 70s). No one ate them. They smelled so bad that I bet one of the guys on the team that his dog wouldn't eat it (his dog will eat anything). Sure enough, when we got home and tried to feed the sandwich to the dog, he sniffed it, whimpered once and slowly backed away.

4 What's in a care package from Mama Borchers?

I have my mom send me the following things regularly: brown sugar, dehydrated buttermilk (to make pancakes), walnuts, Ziploc bags, book club books and DVDs. I'd have her send me a Chipotle burrito once a week if it were possible.

5 Do you have an interesting Nat Borchers European travel story?

We had to fly out of Oslo for a game in lesund just last month. We ended up hitting a snag on the tarmac on the way out. The pilot came on the intercom and said, "We don't know why, but we aren't being allowed to leave the airport." I was busy doing my Sudoku puzzle (I have a mild obsession with them), and I didn't think anything about the announcement. Then, the pilot came on the intercom and said, "Sorry, folks, we don't know why, but the airport here in Oslo is closed." That's when my ears perked up. The weather was beautiful outside, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary on the tarmac. We waited on the tarmac for about an hour before some Norwegian police officers came on the plane. They came through the aisles very slowly, making a visual inspection of all of the passengers. It was really strange. No one from our flight was arrested. Finally, two hours later, we were told that we were the only plane allowed to leave the airport. Apparently, somebody suspicious got through security that wasn't supposed to. That very same day, we tried to get a flight from lesund back to Oslo. Funny enough, the flight crew didn't show up because they were "worried about the risks." We ended up spending the night in lesund.

Check out the full Q&A with the former Rapids star at the FC Rocky soccer blog. Borchers discusses his standing with the national team, the level of play in the Tippeliga and life as the only American player on a Norwegian soccer team. Go to Rocky MountainNews.com/soccer and click on the Nat Borchers Q&A entry.

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