Nottingham Forest (A)
Premier League, February 1999
The super-sub scores four in an 8-1 City Ground rout.
For his best, United’s sixth, Ole first beats the offside
trap and then Dave Beasant from the edge of the box.
Bordeaux (A)
Champions League, March 2000
The Baby-Faced Assassin controls a clearance from
Raimond van der Gouw, beats two opponents and
then the goalkeeper to net an 84th-minute winner.Lille (A)
Champions League, October 2001
Another Beckham assist which dissects French lines,
taking out four players. Ole strides onto the ball and
sticks it in the top corner before a jubilant away end. ImagesPA; Getty Images (Chelsea)well and got some of the best young
Norwegian players. Molde played an
offensive style of football. Ole’s agent, Jim
Solbakken, has been with him a long time
and he helped.”
Solbakken, who met Solskjaer in 1991
when they trained for the same
Clausenengen team in their hometown of
Kristiansund, has gone on to become
Norway’s most influential agent and,
according to Fjortoft, “helped to give Ole
a good overview of the best players in
Norway. Not only that, he’s got a good team
around him with a talent scout, John Vik,
who has an overview of all young players in
Norway. For a young Norwegian, never
underestimate the attraction of playing for
Ole Gunnar.”
He would need that to work since it was
hard to convince the top players to play
outside of Oslo or Trondheim.
Solskjaer’s remodelling meant Molde won
the Tippeligaen title for the first time in 2011
and again in 2012, the year he was granted
permission to speak to Aston Villa. He
decided to remain in Norway where his wife
Silje and their three children were happy and
settled. That was the biggest hurdle to him
becoming United boss, as they stayed in
Norway while he lived initially in a hotel
before moving to buzzy Hale and Bowdon,
close to Altrincham.
Several first-team players now live
there and the proximity to the training
ground helps. When he was a player the
Solskjaers resided further east in Cheshire,
close to Ferguson.
Ole said he would only leave Molde for a
big club with a big setup, so it was
something of a surprise when he accepted
the Cardiff job in January 2014, despite
Ferguson sharing his doubts and Bluebirds
owner Vincent Tan not being seen as the
most stable in football.
Solskjaer was charged with keeping them
in the Premier League, and went straight
to the players he’d known in England at
Old Trafford.
“He texted me before he got the job and
said he thought I would enjoy playing at
Cardiff,” recalls Brazilian full-back Fabio da
Silva, now at Nantes. “I didn’t want to go and
join a team in a relegation battle, because
I’d been in one on loan at QPR. It’s not fun,
so I told him I’d be free the next summer.
Ole then turned up at my house in Bowdon. I
liked him and his ideas so much that he left
my house with me saying, ‘I will do
everything I can to help you.’ I wanted to
play for him, to make him happy. It was
impossible for me to turn him down.” Fabio
joined Cardiff on a three-year contract.
“He wanted to play dominant football
like he’d done at United, but – and it took
me years to learn this – you can’t,” adds
the Brazilian. “We didn’t have the same
players at Cardiff. Sometimes you must
accept that other teams have better players
and that your best results may come from
counter-attacks.”
Cardiff came bottom of the Premier League
in 2013-14, and Solskjaer was about to learn
the hard way what happens when you lose.
“I saw him suffering and it upset me,” says
Fabio. “Players took advantage of him. He
tried to give us a rest after a defeat. He
would say he knew how we felt and gave us
two days off, to forget and come back
charged up to fight again. Some players
questioned having two days off after a
defeat, but they would have questioned
whatever he did because that’s what
footballers do when the team is losing. I’m
sure Ole learned so much there.”
While he was at Cardiff, this writer phoned
Solskjaer. Rodrigo Possebon, a Brazilian
who’d played under Solskjaer at United,
wanted to play for him again. Possebon
didn’t have his number and asked if I could
call him. It was an unusual request, but I’d
written Solskjaer’s website with him in 2000
and spent a day with him at Carrington going
through his life. Before that, a diehard United
fan asked if I’d get him to sign a print of him
scoring at the Camp Nou in 1999 and
scribble on it, ‘Who put the ball in the
Germans’ net?’
Ole wasn’t keen (‘disrespectful’) and,
instead wrote ‘Dear John, I hope this goal
gave you as much pleasure as it gave me.’I didn’t have his number by 2014 and
called Cardiff’s switchboard. Ole took
the call.
“I’m still reading all your articles, especially
when I want to sleep,” he laughed, “and I’m
building a mini Man United. But it’s not the
time to bring Rodrigo here – it’s better for
him that I don’t.” That was an honest
statement from a man who knew his time
was up.
Solskjaer was sacked in September 2014
after a poor start to the Championship
season, and Fabio admits Ole needed to
leave, saying: “The Championship was no
league for him. He needs to be at a team
which plays football.”Above Lifting the
fifth of his six league
titles with United in
2003 Above left
Ole got Pogba
smiling – and
scoring – once againFourFourTwo.com The Managers 105OLE GUnnA R
SOLSKJAER