Euro Leagues: Champions League underdogs

0:00On the Football Daily Podcast, the EuroLeagues with Steve Crossman. Welcome to the EuroLeagues. Hello, Guillaume. Hello, Steve. How are you? In studio, no less. In the same place as you. You are real. I am real, yes. I forgot you were. Were you starting to think that I was AI? Yeah, that's right. Yes, yes, yes. There's no intelligence here, artificial or otherwise. But that's nothing on you, Julien Leroyne. Is he okay? Very good. How are you? Very good, thank you. I was with Guillaume in Marseille yesterday. He had, as you can imagine, the most beautiful jacket and shirt. Oh, thank you. Ready for the game.

0:34That was the first time I used it, thank you. I actually got a present for Steve from Marseille. No, you didn't. Yes. Is this for me? Yes, you have to open it. It says Souvenir d 'Olympique Marseille. Let's see if we can do a bit of... Is it ASMR? Is that what it's called? It's not working. It is working. All right, who are you to judge Rafa Honickstein? Honestly. I should have got an easier present, I think. Oh, it's open now. I'm in. Goodness me, it's a new Apple. No, I'm joking. What is it? This is the skyline of Marseille, of course. Oh, beautiful. It's the skyline. I hold it up to the camera so the guys can see.

1:14You'll just have to imagine it at home. It's the skyline of Marseille. Looks pretty sharp, probably not allowed in a studio, Guillaume, but I appreciate you nonetheless. Thank you very much. Yeah, OK. That's beautiful. Thanks very much. Right, so we've got Guillaume, we've got Jules, we've got Raphael Honickstein, we've got a great show coming up. We're going to start with the story in the Champions League this week. That was a brilliant night for Berda Glimp, was it? And they've had some big nights in Europe before. Maybe listeners will remember when they thrashed Jose Mourinho's Roma 6-1 a few years ago.

1:48And I'm not going to lie to you, this is one of the guests that I've been most excited to speak to for a very, very long time. So this is going to be a lot of fun. Delighted to say we can speak now to one of the men who's played a really big role in the rise of Berda Glimp. and that is their mentality coach Bjorn Manswerk, who's not a former player. He's a former fighter pilot. Good evening, Bjorn. Good evening. There's loads to talk to about Bjorn, but can we just go straight in on being a fighter pilot? Because I just think it's fascinating. So what are the crossover skills? And what's a mentality coach?

2:24Yeah, if you start with the latter, I'm not really sure if I would call myself a mentality coach because we work in so many different arenas. It's a lot of leadership. It's how we organize, how we communicate. If you could sum it up, actually, I like the CEO of Buddy Glimt. He calls me a culture coach or a culture advisor or a culture builder. So I like that description better. Yeah, how can we find crossovers? I mean, as a fighter pilot, you are flying alone. You are alone in the cockpit, but you still hunt together with others. You are a team. So it's always the weakest link. It's always a matter of trusting each other and have a good understanding and be loyal to the plan.

3:16and obviously that we need to learn all the time because what we did yesterday is not necessarily good enough for tomorrow. And for us being a fighter pilot, if we have to go on, if you're not good enough, if you fail, that could have a fatal consequence. So the motivation to become better every day is so dominant. But I see just a lot of crossovers. But what is the team element of being a fighter pilot then? because I've seen Top Gun and it does seem to be a lot about Tom Cruise. So how are you finding that aspect of it and translating it? First of all, me and Tom Cruise, we are a lookalike. Yes, absolutely.

3:59I thought it was Tom Cruise on the line, actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, my experience is that it's definitely a teamwork. We are a small group of specialists or athletes, top athletes, I would say. We have to kind of face new challenges all the time. Just look at the technology. Technology is really hitting the armed forces at a high speed, not only us, but also with the opposing teams, if you could call it like that. So you have to keep up and you should always be in a lead of the ones you compete against. So we need to sit down and be good on evaluating what we are doing together, being able to identify the real lessons learned and figure out how we can fix that and implement every day to always be maybe just a margin ahead of the ones we compete against.

5:04So building that security to be able to raise your voice, come up with new ideas and hopefully be creative enough to event something new, it is so important. A culture coach. There's two things I'd like to ask you. The second one will be what does it mean to have a culture in an institution like a football club. But first, do you find a culture coach in your club because you are surrounded by an atmosphere of needing to learn that could be in your country or near Scandinavia? Or are you one off and you started experimenting and it kind of worked? How did you reach to that conclusion that you needed one?

5:48That Budiglip needed a culture coach? coach no this is the story goes uh actually way back if i am if i can rewind because we did some mental training program in my squadron back in 2009 2010 that was just a coincidence that was just something we tested out that's not not normal for for novenan fighter pilots in 2016 16 Bordegrimf, they were inbound to celebrate their 100th anniversary. But it didn't turn out to be a celebration because they didn't manage to stay in the top level. And they basically saw that it was not due to the lack of skills, I mean football skills. they basically realized that during the last part of the season they mentally collapsed as a team and they also acknowledged that we don't have anything when it comes to mental training in the club so this was one in Borde Glimt that actually took action and said that I believe that we can become good in mental training as well because we do become good uh on what we practice when it comes to to football skills so he started to look for something being aware that there is a little stigma when it comes to mental training or at least at least it was so he wanted to find something that kind of a silver bullet that could penetrate this resistance and this stigma and he came across by coincidence he was actually having a cup of coffee with another fighter pilot a colleague of me that was part of this pro program in 2009 2010 just actually just a few hundred meters away from the stadium in buddha so he really liked the method how well it was received by the fighter pilots and the rest of the squadron personnel and not at least the positive effect on individuals but also the positive effect on the group or the team itself.

8:01So he figured out if it works for a fighter pilot, I guess it's going to work for a football player as well. So that was the starting point. So there was no plan from my side, at least, to engage in football. Not at all. And Bjorn, more practically maybe for the listeners and for us, what's the day like for you? What do you do? Is it individual interviews with the players? Do you wait for players to come to you? Is there like group sessions? Do you do any kind of exercise in particular? Do you put them in a situation and they have to find answers? What is it exactly more practically how you coach them?

8:44It's more or less all of the above, but it has changed since we started. Remember, they took the initiative and we figured out that, okay, I'll come with my experience and share my perspectives and and after that i would say this is something that we developed uh so and and we have tested out we have tried we have failed we have uh succeeded we have gone back to some of the methods but we started out with i did this on my spare time it was kind of a hobby so limited capacity when it comes to home and players but uh for me it was really important that people had to volunteer. You can't really force mental work on people.

9:29So Bode Glimt picked out some players, players that actually were struggling, but they did believe in them. They saw that they had a talent, but they didn't really get, they didn't really manage to get their potential out. So I sat down talking one-to-one with, I think it was seven, eight players in the beginning uh no problem they they were talking they were sharing uh that was no problem at all but then then i kind of just put them together in a group because that was my background that we always meet in a group and we we share we give each other feedback um so and i i didn't know football i didn't understand football so but i understood that they were really good they had skills and also good understanding.

10:20So, okay, now I just facilitate, you can start talking. And it became total silence. So they were not used to work as a team. So the only feedback flowed, that was the monologue from the coach team, not because they wanted it, but that was the setup. So then we figured out that, okay, now we need to practice, go back, go very basic. Hey, can we start talking about something in this group and uh when they was they were exposed to talking to each other and they saw that that worked and we started to twist it to hey we need to talk about the right stuff here and we need to to be robust enough to kind of challenge each other and and maybe throw out some new ideas and suddenly it started to roll the group were kind of became more and more safe or secure with each other.

11:16And they shared whatever. There was no problem. And they also ended up with, in a way, a creative phase and they invented new tools or things we could use in the games, for instance. And that has been changing a little bit from maybe less one-to-one sessions. It's more on demand to just group sessions. And then right now we are back to talking to everybody. It's not like volunteering anymore, but it's more with an intention to prepare for group sessions. And we split the team. Right now we split it into four, so we get good group dynamic, like seven, eight players in a group. And we also use, we have established a captain's team.

12:10If you didn't know, we used to have eight captains until recently. Match is good with four groups because then you can split in two captains in each group. And they kind of run their show in a way. They talk and they share. But they are real leaders. They do have the attitude. They walk to talk and a pretty good understanding of our philosophy. and they are actually playing as captains as well. They select themselves who's going to be the captain in the game. So everything is in a process. And this is based on discussions with the captain's team, with the coach team. So it's a lot of we in this project.

13:01Bjorn, there's many amazing things about your club, starting with the fact that you have almost exclusively Norwegians, many of them locals, no real outside investments, all done organically. But actually the thing that threw me most, that I found most surprising, is that you have your sort of version of the children's game, Yes, No, Black, White, where there's certain things that cannot be mentioned or won't be mentioned by the coach. One of them being win and lose, which I find absolutely astonishing. Can you quickly explain why that is and what happens there exactly? I think that's more people like to describe or media like to describe it like that.

13:42The point is that when we started, when I came into the club with my background from the Air Force or the fighter pilot community, my reference was that since we didn't go to war, I mean luckily we didn't go to war so we didn't like meet Russia or China every Sunday and had a game and then we could have a result to look at if we're good or not we just had we were forced to focus on our own processes and performance when I met Bode Glimt they were a typical football club it was a matter of winning games getting points and so on but for me that was I needed to challenge them on that part But it took a while.

14:30This is not a quick fix, but we started in the spring of 2017. And in January 2019, I think that enough players have been challenged over time. And they were ready to let go with the result. The point with not focusing on the result is that we have scarce time and resources. us i mean we need to be to prioritize uh what we spend time and energy on and at least what we spend time and energy on that that need to be kind of controllable we need to be able to do something about it and we can't really fully control the result but that's one of the logic why we should just let go with that it doesn't really matter you you don't necessarily perform well if you win a game or vice versa.

15:22The other thing is that if you start focusing on the result which is not controllable, that could be very much stressful compared to only focusing on what you can control. We just expect the players to go out and play at their potential. Nothing more than what we have seen during trainings and so on. It takes away a lot of pressure if you can let go with the result and just focus on what you can control. Bjorn, just before we let you go then, just one more thing that I want to ask you is from that sort of mentality culture perspective, how would you help players when they have to do something like come up against Erling Haaland, come up against effectively a national hero and a bit of a phenom?

16:08What is the mentality secret to helping players at Buda Glimt come to terms with that and thrive in that environment? our philosophy is like we should practice the same thing every day it doesn't really matter who we are up to because as soon as we start changing something then they kind of get the feeling that this is a very important game or this is difficult or and then the stress easily takes over. So we try to run business as usual. So we don't do anything special since it's Brødhåland. But obviously we analyze Manchester City as a team to figure out what are the strengths, what are the weaknesses.

16:56So our task every time we go on the pitch is first of all dare to be yourself, trust your own skills and and not do anything special, but also be loyal to the game plan. And that's what I saw versus Manchester City. I think that by far, I think the best performance we ever did, so many people were fearless and they really did stay to the plan. They were really loyal. And then we see the power in playing as a team. Bjorn, it's been absolutely lovely to have you with us. Thank you so much for coming on. Congratulations again on an amazing victory. And good luck at Atletico as well, because we could be talking about you in the knockout round.

17:50Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you.

17:56From a small village on the banks of the River Nile. Everybody call me Mohamed, but in a short name or nickname, To the biggest stages of world football. Salah is more than just a player. He's an icon, a symbol, a king.

18:18Mohamed Salah represents a dream for Egyptians, for Muslims, for Africans. More than just a football player, he gave us hope. I'm Kelly Cates. This is Sporting Giants' Mo Salah. Listen on BBC Sounds. On the Football Daily Podcast, the EuroLeagues with Steve Crossman. Another big story in the Champions League this week, Karabag's 3-2 win over Frankfurt. Barlow Mustafzada scored the winner in the 94th minute. So he is the first Azerbaijani player to score in the Champions League. Of course, they are the first team from Azerbaijan to play in the Champions League. And who knows, they might become the first as well to go through to the knockout round.

18:58They're 18th in the league. If they were to get a draw at Liverpool next week, it could be enough for a playoff place. And we'll talk, Raf, shortly about German teams in the Champions League and Frankfurt right up at the top of the list. But we've got to start with Carabaug. I mean, it is one of the great stories of this Champions League season, isn't it? Yeah, one of many. We've seen a few minutes. We talked about Bodo Glimt earlier on. I think this format gives them more opportunities to have an impact, to have at least one sort of famous night because you have more opponents and maybe opponents knowing that they have eight games to qualify sometimes take one of those minors a little bit lightly and maybe underestimate them.

19:43But yeah, it was really, really great. We saw other teams like Pafos doing really well, even if they didn't get the results. We haven't really seen, at least not in the last few matches that I remember, huge scorelines, which suggest that, you know, the level, even though differences are still vast in terms of finances and the kind of players they can attract, it hasn't been crazily out of guilt in terms of the quality that we've seen so far. And Karabaka, one of the teams, and even in previous attempts that they've seen, that they've made in group stages and so on, they've always acquitted themselves fairly well.

20:22And I think nobody likes to go all the way to Azerbaijan and that, you know, the travel is an issue that can affect teams and so on. And of course, Boruglund can play on the same thing with the artificial pitch. But these are the quirks, I think, that make this new format quite entertaining. And it'd be interesting to see all the money that they're getting through the Champions League, obviously helping them to dominate in a home 11 league titles in the last 12 years. If that affects the league or if that money is distributed somehow. I'm hearing that for instance in Poland that is happening so appearances in Europe some of it goes to the clubs others stay in the league and that has made the league really really fascinating but yeah in this case it's good to see that at least that growth in the case of Karabakh reflects in good results in Europe for more stories like that I also Jules quite like it when you get the kind of sort of minnow teams whereby you almost feel like you have a national team in a club competition because I could hear the manager of Karabag yesterday was talking about what this will do for Azerbaijani football.

21:28The government has been providing them with funding as well, not the kind of funding that all their opponents have, clearly. But it is that sort of thing of almost the feel of a nation taking part. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Kobanov himself, the manager, I think he's the longest serving manager in the Champions League. He's been there like 18 years or 19 years, something crazy like that. is build this team through the years to take it to a Champions League campaign like this where, okay, they've had tough times because when you lose to Ajax, who at the time were one of the worst teams that we've ever seen in the competition, it's not nice.

22:05But when you beat Frankfurt, when you draw with Chelsea, this is once in a lifetime really for some of those players, players that they found in a lot of different situations, different other leagues and countries and all of that. And to do that, I think it takes a lot of credit for the manager to be able to put a team like that, despite the core of obviously local players, as you said, and a lot of them are in the national team. But still to add a little bit of extra special talent somewhere from other players from outside the country is very special. And this is stories like that, why we like the Champions League and what we want, what this league phase is also working, because I think it would have been far more difficult in a group of four like it used to be.

22:48and those six games for them to go through, it would have depended heavily on the draw because they would have been put four, for example. So at least the league phase gives them more opportunities, more chances than they've taken them so far. Yeah, and it's worth pointing out as well. Like I said, if they get a point at Anfield, then they're going to go through. But even if they lose, they're 18th and you've got to finish 25th to miss out on the playoffs. They're on 10 points. They've got Marseille, Leverkusen, Monaco below them on nine. Then PSV, Athletic Bilbao and Olympiacos on eight. and that rounds out the top 24.

23:20So even if they lose, in all probability, they're going to go through. It's the classic Raph. It's like Macclesfield Town in the FA Cup. Nobody's going to want to go to Carabag in the playoff round. No, and they play in Baku, of course, and teams have had problems there, going there. It takes a long time to get in, passport control. There's been some issues with luggage and so on. and it's quite political of course because they can't play in their own hometown because of the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia so I can understand why the Azerbaijani government are quite invested in them and see them as a real symbol for the country and a way to put Azerbaijan on the map as well.

24:07So I'm just looking at the Champions League table here Raph and I've got as far as Olympiakos in 24th and I'm scrolling and I'm scrolling Oh, and I found Frankfurt in 33rd. And we'll talk about the wider issues in just a second. But before we do, what has happened to Frankfurt? Because they were a team only a few years ago that you thought of as, for the top Premier League teams away in Europe, that's a really difficult place to go. They're going to be a real challenger in maybe not the Champions League, but all of the other European competitions. They are miles off it. They're done in Europe now this season.

24:44Yeah, I mean, they are terrible at the moment. They won the Conference League not long ago with Oliver Glasner, of course, but the Champions League has always proved a little bit difficult. This is their, I think, second or third season now, and they haven't really done that well. The jump up is quite big, but the bigger problem is that this has been a Frankfurt team that hasn't been able this season to defend. They've conceded so many goals also in the league. I think in the last four games, every single time, they've conceded a minimum of three goals. I mean, it's just not sustainable. And that includes Karabak.

25:16And that includes late goals, as happened against Werder Bremen on Friday and against Karabak. And, of course, Dino Todmuller, the coach, lost his job over this slump in form. And now they had a veteran player, former player Alex Meyer in charge as a caretaker, along with the under-21 coach. And they're looking for a new manager. But it's been a very, very difficult season for Frankfurt. And they are a side, I think, who are still trying to establish themselves, having established themselves as a regular contender to get into the Champions League. They're still behind the likes of Bayern and Dortmund and what would have been Leipzig if it hadn't been for a bad season last year.

25:58As a German team that can actually cope with those two things at the same time. This year it was clear that they couldn't, especially having once again sold so many good players, Eketika being the best of them. It's just been a bit of a slog for them. I feel like, Raph, we're just on the wheel of German football stories over the years. Like we had a couple of years, oh, hang on, someone's going to challenge Bayern's dominance here. And now the wheel has turned and we're back to, is it a problem that they're so dominant? yeah it's a problem this season because Bayern have only dropped um four points all season they are scoring goals at a ridiculous rate on course of scoring something like 130 goals and they look as if they're going to go unbeaten like Leverkusen have done you're right Steve I think the conversation would be very different if Dortmund had only managed to win that last game of the season in 2023 then you'd look at Dortmund Leverkusen and now Bayern people would say okay fine it's Bayern again but because Leverkusen were the only team to puncture this dominance since 2013 it looks it looks a lot worse and also because companies Bayern have this Guardiola like dominance and stranglehold on opponents and keep going once they're 3-0 4-0 up they keep going and score six and seven now this has led to a bit of soul searching and people are worried how that's going to affect the league and so on on the plus side the tv ratings are still very good buy-in doing europe i think has a positive knock-on effect because they are being seen as a genuine good team just as a as a national bully who who cannot compete in europe and therefore sort of devalue the league but of course you want more competition internally the problem is none of them have really none of the people who've been talking about this in recent days have really put forward any clear solution there's talk from Berta Bremen president to say maybe we need a salary cap but of course a national salary cap which hugely disadvantage Bayern when it comes down to challenging in Europe.

28:14Others are saying we need to redistribute the TV money more equitably, but to give you a bit of an idea of the TV money in Germany, it's not that big, it's not Premier League money, it's 60 million more or less for the winner and 37 million, that's euros, for the last team. So if you take, let's say, 5 million or 10 million away from Bayern and give it to Heidenheim and so on, it would even things up a little bit. But is it enough for a team that turns over nearly a billion euros in case of Bayern? Probably not. So in my view, and this is, of course, increasingly the bigger argument, the only thing that can really change German football structurally in the long run is if the 50 plus one rule that prohibits or prevents outside investment and means that the clubs are still run by the members will eventually fall.

29:08And then suddenly, I think you'll see the biggest economy in Europe who now plays almost with one arm tied behind their back because they're limiting themselves in terms of the money that could come into the clubs. If they were to open that up, I think we'd see a very, very different Bundesliga. But the fans are adamant that they don't want it. And the clubs being controlled by the fans are in no position to change it. so I wonder if Guilherme or Julien have maybe some ideas how we can change that imbalance short of I'm pointing to Thomas Tuchel because he of course managed to finish third with Bayern which was some feat.

29:49I just wonder if there is any lessons to be taken from the success of Leverkusen or Dortmund through the years so instead of just looking for money to change matters if there is a coaching thing a selection process thing, sharpening your own tools to actually get closer to Bayern Munich. But I know it has up and downs that you get it right, that structure, that process, and you can get close to it. But then you start selling players and you have to start over again, which Bayern Munich cannot do. But it is a difficult situation, isn't it? European Super League, Gilles? That was for Guillaume. very selfishly I'm really enjoying Bayern and I know they're obviously working on the Bundesliga and it's them and the rest but they're a wonderful team to watch every weekend in the Bundesliga whoever they face they might go unbeaten and obviously Xabi Alonso and Bayer Leverkusen have done it before but it would be special for them to do it they could break every record that has been set individually collectively goals assist goals for Kane assists for Olise amount of points amount of goals scored Rafi said if you score 130 goals in a season.

31:00They're already on 71 in 18 games. That's just in the league, by the way. Classic, Gilles. Hate competition, just once won. No, I'm just saying. So are you. No, because for us, we watch it in a different... I know we have to move on to something else, but for us, we watch it differently than Rafi, obviously. For me, watching the Bundesliga and Dortmund and Leverkusen is great, but Bayern are incredible to watch. So I see it probably differently than him. We're going to talk a little bit of Ajax, PSV and FC Twente now in the company of De Telegraph's Marcel van der Kran. Evening, Marcel. Evening, guys.

31:37Thanks for having me on. Always a pleasure. Can we start actually by talking about Eric Ten Hag, our old friend, because he next week starts his new job as technical director at FC Twente. So he starts as technical director on the 1st of February. When does he take over as manager? Well, that's a cheeky little thought of you, Steve. I'm convinced he will stay technical director. He said he's been in many different roles. He's got his experience for Manchester United. I don't know whether that brings any good to Twente or not, but he's already got people in mind. I think the current coach is not sure anymore of his job because the agent of the current coach, which is John van der Brom, has said on Sunday in a television live programme on the football show, oh, I think his days are numbered.