I've thought there might be something along those lines, too. Perhaps even something that's just cultural as much as anything else. Scandinavians (yes, I'm going to lump them together just this once), particularly Norwegians in my experience, are definitely different. I figure it's a combination ofJayH's theory, the language thing, and his Norwegian weirdness making him seem stand-offish and aloof.
I can only imagine the misunderstandings possible between an EASL Frenchman who learned British English and an EASL Norwegian(-American) who learned "American" English both trying to talk about playing soccer in a baseball stadium in the middle of NYC. It's like a Key & Peele sketch or something.
I have conversations every day with EASL people where I am forced to infer a lot. I have to do that with a lot of what PV says - try to figure out what he means because what he says doesn't make exact sense.
And that's not to criticize anyone's language skills. Not at all. Just pointing out how it's probably even worse when there's not a native speaker on either end.
Hell, Klinnsman lived in the US for 20 years, and he still said things in English that required significant "interpreting" on the part of the speaker.
Did you see the post-match interview with Pep a few weeks back after the Burnley game? When Burnley score after basically bulldozing Bravo, Pep tells the interviewer something like "Anywhere else in the world that's his fault. It was his fault. I have to understand this." So the interviewer thinks he's tossing Bravo under the bus, but Hugh goes in deeper in his video linked below. It should start at 9:55 - 11:40 but if it doesn't for some reason just fast forward to that point. Great example of how easily shit can get mixed up with all the accents in football:
