Bodo/Glimt: Learn Bjorn Mannsverk – former fighter pilot inspires the Norwegian club players as they face Spears in the Champions League | Football news

Norway will host the first appropriate match in the Champions League in 18 years on Tuesday, but it will not be in the home of the established giants Rosnburg, Muldi or Valenca.

Instead, it is a team of a city with a number of less than 50,000 people in the circle in the Arctic.

Bodo/Glimt rises European ranks that dominated local football. The league champions of four out of five seasons, they first appeared in the European League in 2022, then reached the semi -finals of the competition in the last period, and lost to Tottenham Hotspur.

Now, they are preparing to face Tottenham again as Budo welcomes the best Champions League teams at their 8720 -seat stadium.

But if you ask anyone in the club, his success cannot be linked to a world -class manager, nor a group of stars players or tactics. Instead, a deep -rooted culture and team spirit.

Behind it, he is their mental coach, Burhen Mansfirk – who was an active fighter pilot for more than 20 years and was presented in Norway as the individual of creating psychological miracles in the dressing room.

The role of Mannsverk is unique in the game: He has no interest in football and even spends 75 percent of his time working in the Norwegian Oil Fund. However, it became a major column in the club.

This is through individual mental training sessions with players, as well as his group meetings. These sessions are not mandatory, but every player chooses to work with him.

To help draw his success in the club, Mannsverk joined Bodo/Glimt in the summer of 2017 – their centenary year. But their celebrations were destroyed by the Norwegian trip. It was a rocky moment – and far from the place they are now.

Mansfirk says to Sky Sports On this relegation, which was previously arriving at the club, a step led by sports director Havard Sakariasen.

“Although they have football skills in the team to stay in the upper section, they did not manage it. They did not deal with pressure – and they realized that they had nothing when it came to the psychological or mental aspect of things.”

Mannsverk discovered how good the useful psychology in his career as a fighter pilot – especially when it comes to training. Norwegian fighter pilots rarely face a suitable fighting, so spending a lot of time in practice.

Mental training was tried by his squadron between 2009 and 2010, and a year later, they have already undergone tasks in Libya – work alongside UK forces – as well as in Afghanistan. There was where Mansfirk saw the true effects of mental training.

He recalls, “We left some pressure on the individual level,” he said. “He built more flexibility.” As a group it becomes more efficient.

“The way we trained was excellent – I made the tasks really easy. But mental training gave us something additional we had never had.

“It was a matter of being more aware when you tried emotions and feelings to distract your attention. As you start when you start to drop bombs – you did not do it before – then you see them exploding, the hell of fire and shrapnel everywhere. You start thinking, get feelings.

“The effect of training was to increase my ability to focus, which was really good, but this was better. It made me imagine: What should I think?

Mannsverk became part of the mental training training program after seeing these benefits – then Bodo/Glimt called his services at the hour of his need.

In his first meeting with the training staff, Mansfirk explained his philosophy and after its end, he got a tap on the shoulder. It was Kjetil Knutsen, the assistant manager at the time, who told him that he fully believed in his ways.

Knutsen has been promoted to the main coach after a year, and, with Mannsverk, was a major part of the furniture, overseeing the best sporting success in the club’s history over the past seven years.

How to transform the Budo players around them

Pudo’s mental coach does not believe in “one -man shows” or miracles. For Mannsverk, it comes to serious work over time, awareness of doing the right things, and stopping errors. There is no quick solution.

Upon his arrival at the club, Mansfirk started looking at the team members. The training team provided some players who need psychological support after their landing. One of them was Ulrik Salents.

The midfielder was a young player with a great future in front of him – with the exception that no one saw on the field. He was great in training, but he was “absorbed” in the matches, according to Manferk, partly due to stomach problems dating back to early adolescence years that usually forced him in the first half. There was no medical logic for that.

Salts attended the Mansfirk session with the desire to quit football. He told me, “I am very tired of failure. I am very tired of suffering from great pain. So I have already made my decision: I will play for another a few months, then I start teaching in August, September. The club was informed, I’m outside. “

Six weeks later, Salents’ pain disappeared after sessions with Mansfirk. He scored 15 goals in 30 games in the second Norwegian class in the same year. It is still a major column for the Budo team, with more than 400 club games and scored dual -number goals in four out of six seasons.

“I have already used this information about” I will resign, “says Mansfirk about his talks with Saltnes.

“You have a few months remaining, why don’t you go with the flow?

“You cannot really shoot, because you have already told them that you will resign. Is it possible to play less than you already do?”

“He agreed to this type of rational thinking.” “Then he was able to do that. He left the pressure, went to the flow.”

There are many other individual success stories about Manfirk in Budo/Glimt – Captain Patrick Berg is another player taken from a rocky bottom and is now a main player on the Norwegian side.

Sharing errors and “Episode” – Lessons from a fighter pilot

Getting individuals’ performance is one thing – how can you make a team? Mannsverk has arrived at Bodo/Glimt with the team is completely unable to communicate with each other in team meetings.

“He was completely calm. Quiet,” he recalls. And I said, “Why don’t you speak? They said, “No, we are not accustomed to this.”

“What would be their contact with the training staff? It was not a dialogue, it was a monologue. Not because they wanted a monologue but because they were not trained in a dialogue.

And I asked them: “Why don’t you start making other notes? “It was at all.

One of the practices that was invented in the Mansfirk group sessions was the “ring”. After each goal, Budo admits, the players meet in a gathering not only to discuss their mistakes – but their participation.

The scene of this concept was inspired by the pilot’s fighter experiences in Mansfirk. “When it comes to aviation safety, it was really important to stop immediately while we were honest in our mistakes,” he recalls.

“Not to blame every individual, but we understand that we need to learn from him. You can make a mistake and survive, but in the next one you can do yourself and you can kill yourself.

“It was really important to share mistakes, so she was not afraid of them. This was a must.

“As fighter pilots, we were really good in making comments. It was very honest. We didn’t waste time, it was upward forward and accurately. It was not just a reactions to me as a pilot, but also as a person and my behavior.”

To fall to what extent Budo came in this respect in the team’s participation, one of the most prominent Mansfirk in Budo/Ghulat is when former midfielder Hugo Vitlesen began sharing observations with midfielders competing for his position in the team.

“We needed this loss for Tottenham.”

One of the most prominent events was 6-1 of Rome Jose Mourinho at the European Conference of 2021. Mansfirk says: “Not because of the result.” “This was the first time that I saw many players playing in their capabilities. Some of them have achieved giant leaps – and they really played as a team.”

There were disappointments in Budo as well, as the Norwegian team lost to Spears in the semi -finals of the European League last season, and failed to fluctuate the progress of the first two goals despite controlling the tie in Norway.

“This was not a setback. That was a source of inspiration,” Mansfirk claims. “What I saw in Budo, was a good signal for people who put these skills and play as a team. Wow, that was great.

“We have our values ​​that are loyal to how we play and act, and hill in weapons, where we look where we stand together in ascending and landing.

“We needed this loss. Many players and coaches refer to this:” We need to increase the sharpening, we have something that we aim at. “

Tottenham must have some anxiety. Bodo/Glimt has caught this season.

In the qualifying round, they stimulated the Sturm Graz 5-0 in the first stage to secure the place of the league-the most prominent in Mannsverk. Then in the first league match, they were falling 2-0 to Slavia Prague with 12 minutes to go-before the fighting to demand a draw.

This club is not lucky to be at this stage. This is not a weak story. It is one of the elasticity of grays and high performance.