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Jan Åge Fjørtoft reveals Pep Guardiola’s very personal message when the Spaniard was Bayern Munich coach.
He’s on a recent episode of the Transitional Journalist. Fabrizio Romanos podkast-series «Here we go», where the Italian brings as a guest the Norwegian football expert and former national team player Jan Åge Fjørtoft.
The conversations between the two are mostly about transition rumors and plans for various clubs in the next window, but they also take the time to look back in time.
Finally, they delve into the story of a young Martin Ødegaard who was haunted so he could crawl through the big European clubs before he decided to leave Strømsgodset.
Also read: The detail of Norway brought Drillo to bed: – I don’t really think so
Fjørtoft: – He came straight at me with his index finger and pointed at my chest.
Fjørtoft was the so-called team manager of the Norwegian national team at the time and had just played a pivotal role in Ødegaard’s 15-year-old national team debut. He remembers well the situation that was experienced with the then Bayern Munich manager, Pep Guardiola.
– There was a lot of talk about where I should go and they traveled the world and met with the different clubs. I remember going with the coach of the national team (editor’s note from Per Mathias Høgmo) to Qatar to attend Bayern Munich’s training camp. The coach there was Guardiola and we had a meeting with him. Guardiola approached me directly with his index finger, pointed at my chest and said: “You must take him to Bavaria!” You have to take it to Bavaria! I will make him the best player in the world, ”says Fjørtoft about the situation.
He then explains how he responded:
– I stayed there with the coach of the national team and I thought he was not there as an agent, he was not there on that matter and I said to Guardiola: «Mr. Guardiola, we have a big problem ».
He said, “What is the problem?”
– Nobody knows if you are the coach of Bayern Munich next season. Then he didn’t say anything, the Norwegian remembers.
The current Viasat expert recounts how he, the Norwegian coach and the Ødegaard family came together to discuss the next step in a young Ødegaard’s career.
– Later, when we returned, I, as coach of the Norwegian team, invited Martin, his father and the coach of the team to my house in the living room. At that time I wrote down on a paper, I like dramaturgy, what four clubs that at that moment I thought were closer to securing Ødegaard. Liverpool, Arsenal, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid, he says.
– Liverpool was his favorite club
Fjørtoft is clear that he provided information on what Ødegaard was going to choose. He also goes on to state that he always had a good idea of what the man from Drammen would choose.
– I said that when we finish talking together, we’ll see if I’m right about what you’re going to do. We are not talking about what you should do, but what you are going to do.
– Without going into too much detail about this, I was right. The priority I had in my role was correct. As you know, Liverpool was his favorite club, it was his favorite club as a child. Well, he was still a kid at this point, says the man with 71 caps for Norway.
Ødegaard ended up at Real Madrid, where he returns this season as a full member of the A, after several loans to Heerenveen, Vitesse and Real Sociedad.
Fjørtoft thinks he knows why he chose the Spanish capital.
– I still think that the reason why he ended up at Real Madrid was quite simple, in my opinion. First of all, Real Madrid had a second team, the other three clubs did not. The second team coach was Zinedine Zidane. He is not a bad player, he is not a bad coach.
– I remember that Bayern told me that it was Michael Reschke, who is now at Schalke, who was in charge of hiring in Bavaria at the time. I met him after Martín chose to go to Real Madrid and he told me: “If I had known that the second team would be crucial, I would have built a second team to catch him,” concludes Fjørtoft in conversation with Romano.
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