He has a bad conscience for Teigen and dreams of RBK players – VG

The story tells a lot about how committed and motivated Hareide is. You could start your withdrawal in 23 days. Instead, he dreams of insider running moves at Rosenborg.

– The last time I found the solution. Then I slept well afterwards, says Hareide – and shakes his head where we sat at the Scandic hotel near Lerkendal – and talks about the events of the last few weeks, the ones that brought Åge Hareide back to the club he coached with great success in 2003 .

Hareide gets serious. Suddenly. After a good and often funny story, get serious. He looks us straight in the eye and says:

– I MUST take this …

He interrupts his own sentence, quickly:

– I have not been in action since November 19 of last year. It gives you a lot of time to think things through. And, not least, a good time to bother about things, says Hareide. And then it comes suddenly:

– Qualifying for the 2008 European Championships, with Norway … irritates me more every day. And that makes me want to start over. I want to be active and I’m glad Rosenborg came sailing on a board, says the man, who was the manager of the Danish national team until the coronavirus put him out of work this spring.

– What else could you take / choose?

– China, the Emirates … there was something there. But at home there had been no mood for this. On the other hand, there was a good atmosphere for Rosenborg: a three hour and 20 minute drive from Molde.

– When did you feel that you wanted the RBK job?

– Oh … he came right away. I know the club, I recognize the club. I have a social network here, which is important to me. In this job sometimes you have to relax, otherwise you have no chance. You have to get out of the bubble. And the social that I have had around me, no matter where I have been, in Denmark, Sweden or Norway. Absolutely crucial. I am social on my own. Sitting alone in a hotel room in the Emirates? I don’t think I would have done well, says Åge Hareide.

He tells a story that makes him sad and for which he feels very sorry. And what he regrets.

– I met Jahn Teigen, we met sometimes during the championships, a brilliant guy. Also, I was living in Scania when I trained in Malmö, and I said several times that I should visit it.

– Only once did I go there, and then he was not at home … and when I heard he was dead, I felt it: I’m sorry I couldn’t do what I said, I visited Jahn Teigen. It bothers me, says Åge Hareide.

He led his first training session on Monday, although there was not much training, where most of the players trained alternately or are in the process of training again. But Hareide’s day, his first as Rosenborg manager, began with matches at eight o’clock. And then it was in one for the rest of the day, conversations, interviews, then looking for furniture for the new apartment in Solsiden, before the evening ended with a dinner with Ivar Koteng, Rune Bratseth and several other members of RBK.

Åge Hareide, if you haven’t come home, at least you’ve come on a long, clear visit this time. For 17 years he has felt that he has something unresolved in the capital of Trøndelag. The 2003 season was going crazy. In total that season, Hareide Rosenborg led in 60 games. He won 47 of them and lost only five. They were undefeated in 32 games from January to July, in just over six months. Rosenborg scored 180 goals in the 60 games, there are three goals on average per. match. Wild numbers, league and cup championships were brought in.

Then he left, to work as manager of the Norwegian national team. And when he returns, 17 years after the bitter farewell at Lerkendal, he comes from (almost) equally wild numbers with the Danish national team.

If Hareide had started the RBK season with 32 games without a loss, he would have finished his job as manager of the Danish national team with 34 games without losing. Åge Hareide is approaching four years without losing in a football match: October 11, 2016 was the last defeat against Montenegro.

It is a winner RBK comes “home”. Three defeats in 42 games as coach of the Danish national team. Nobody has been better. Only bad luck (crown) ensured that Hareide was not allowed to lead Denmark in the 2020 European Championship. And what would happen after a championship, nobody knows.

– It is not entirely certain that I would have ended up in Rosenborg with a good European Championship behind me, says Hareide, honestly. But there was no European Championship, and Hareide quickly became concerned. Only knee surgery prevented him from embarking on new adventures. Describe a life without being a soccer coach as follows:

– You get up – to go to bed …

Hareide calls it “nonsense”: not being a soccer coach. It has almost only gotten worse over the years. He is motivated like few others, he feels that he is looking forward to Rosenborg playing what he calls “advanced football”, which Hareide believes is the “solution”.

– We can start simultaneous movements, we will tense defensively – and we must be more aggressive. We have to win the ball more often when we lose it. Much of that football has been erased here, it must be manipulated.

– Are you going to be in the field a lot?

– Oh yeah. I have to. Now it is important. I’ll be there all the time, Hareide says, and it glows in her eyes. He talks about “at least 500 passes” that the best teams in the playoffs have in the games, that that is also important, having the ball to control the game.

Hareide says he will “visit Nils”, about maestro Nils Arne Eggen, but right now he thinks the most important thing is that he takes time to get to know the players, as soon as possible, and it takes a long time to influence the team. the way he wants. Hareide will have immediate conversations with all the players, all training will be filmed, and players will be able to see themselves in action, for better or for worse.

– I told one of the players: “I’ll wake you up in the middle of the night to tell you where to run”, Åge Hareide smiles.

The knee works, the motivation is through the roof.

Åge Hareide is finally back.

See more Elite Series stats on VG Live.

The elite series

SEE MORE

• Champions League qualifier
• Europa League qualifier
• Descent rating
• Decline

Trade cooperation: discount codes