Ole Gunnar Solskjaer

Solskjaer: I've prepared all my life for this

Saturday 09 March 2019 22:30

Manchester United caretaker manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has admitted to “secretly” harbouring a long-standing desire to manage the club.

The former striker, who scored 126 goals in 366 appearances for the Reds between 1996 and 2007, has made a blistering start to his new role at Old Trafford, winning 14 of his first 17 matches.
 
And the man who scored the winning goal in the 1999 Champions League final victory over Bayern Munich also suggested that, in his earlier days, he was more confident of becoming a coach or manager than a top-class player.
 
“I think I've been secretly always wanting to do the job I'm doing now,” disclosed the boss. “And I probably believed more that I could be a football coach and a manager than a player, because it took me a few years to get to the level I wanted to be as a player.”
Solskjaer's only defeat, in the first leg against PSG, was made irrelevant by Wednesday's comeback in Paris.
When asked if effective managerial decisions were even more satisfying than the joyous moments he experienced as a player, Solskjaer responded: “Both yes and no really, because the best thing in the world is to play football. That was the best job ever. You just concentrated on yourself, your own lifestyle, do the X amount of minutes that the gaffer asked you to, come into training, rest, recover, do everything that you can to do the job that he wants you to do and just enjoy it.
 
“Of course, I feel honoured and privileged to be the one who makes the decisions, and I think I prepared all my life to make decisions like this, because ever since I was a kid I played all these computer games and [had] written all the teams, selected teams with my mates, in the good old teams with Zico and [Diego] Maradona and [Marco] van Basten, all them teams that I used to pick!”
The Norwegian also mentioned how Sir Alex Ferguson had “put his life” into Manchester United, which subsequently led the attending journalists at his press conference on Friday to ask about the emotional and mental toll of the job, and what he did to relax.
 
“I enjoy it when I’m here,” insisted the Treble hero. “I enjoy it when the family is over. I FaceTime when they're not over, so yeah, no problem. I've got loads of energy and I love it.
 
“I’m quite good at Netflix and TV series and documentaries, and listening to some good old Bob Dylan and stuff and [the] Stone Roses. At the moment, it's Sunderland 'Til I Die actually, but you know, you've probably seen a documentary on Sir Bobby Robson and just nice relaxing times."
 
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