Ole Gunnar Solskjaer: Man Utd legend talks about his career, his unusual talent and his love of Championship Manager

Kelly: You had an illustrious playing career, but of course it’s headlined by Manchester United. Talk to me about the first time you knew of a possibility to come over here to England – to one of the most decorated clubs in the world?

Ole: So for Norway, this is probably one of the most important games in my career. We played Norway against Azerbaijan and I scored two very good goals. Coincidentally, Jim Ryan – the assistant manager – was watching Ronny Johnsen, who we signed. He was sitting next to Mark McGhee, who at that time was Wolverhampton manager, chatting as they do. Mark McGhee is looking for a centre-forward, Jim Ryan’s watching the game and I score two goals. So he thinks, ‘OK, Wolverhampton will probably sign this boy’. He rang Sir Alex [Ferguson] that night and said: ‘I think I found one and he won’t be expensive. It’s a cheap one, but we’ve got to be quick because Wolverhampton are also signing a centre-forward.’ It went really, really fast.

Kelly: That must have been a whirlwind for you…

Ole: Brilliant. Absolutely top. But then you’re never 100% sure until you signed the deal. But I more or less knew, so before my last game for Molde, I said to Age Hareide, who was the coach, that if I scored, I’m going to take my shirt off, throw it into the stands and run off the pitch. He said: ‘No, you can’t do that… but [if you have to] wait until 10 minutes before full-time.’ That’s exactly what happened. I think I scored a fifth goal, 5-1, and I just threw the shirt and ran off the pitch and we had no subs ready to come on, so we had to play a few minutes with 10 men. It was a whirlwind of a time. The media were outside my apartment. They wanted interviews and I just tried to stay away from all that.

Kelly: Was that all new? Like a whole new level of fame?

Ole: Of course. Because 18 months before Manchester United, I played for Clausenengen, my local team, in front of 50 people, so it was a big step up in attention. But I think I’ve been quite OK in handling these situations.

Kelly: I always ask players – and with you, it feels even more prominent because you’ve played in some of the biggest games – if you could relive one game from your career, what would it be?

Ole: Of course, the Champions League final in ’99. I was 80 minutes on the bench like really unhappy with the manager – ‘why don’t you put me on?’ – and we’re losing the game and football’s so emotional. You’re so low and you want to get on the pitch. So 80 minutes of real agony but then I managed to play 15 minutes and those 15 minutes I’d really love to play again. It changed history, of course. It changed my life. It didn’t make me a better footballer but that changed my life as in we made history and I was the one that was fortunate enough to score that goal. And so many men have come up to me and thanked me for giving them the best moment of their lives. [They say] ‘Don’t tell my wife, please, will you?’

Kelly: You mentioned before that you were annoyed with Sir Alex. Obviously you would have always wanted to start, but you gained this incredible reputation, didn’t you? As a super sub. I know every footballer wants to start every game. How did you embrace that?

Ole: I had discussions with Sir Alex. I signed a long, long-term contract. What I did was I put my career in his hands really. I more or less said to myself: ‘Just do your best.’ I’ve seen so many strikers sulking when they’re on the bench. I felt, ‘OK they’ve played 70 or 80 minutes, defenders are tired, I can come on, I can make a difference, I’m fresh, as long as my head is fresh and my mentality is good’. If we were winning 1-0, I was never going to come on. At 0-0 I was like, ‘don’t score, don’t score until he puts me on’. At 1-0 down, yeah, definitely I am coming on. At 2-0 up, he would always give me the 15-20 minutes just to make me feel part of it. He was very good at giving me enough minutes but I knew at 1-0 just to sit down as you’re not going to come on. So 1-0 down against Bayern, I was like, ‘come on then, it’s like 20 minutes…’ It is one of the best 13-15 minutes of my football career.

Kelly: When did management become the thing?

Ole: When I was a kid, I was very into football. Me and my cousin always used to buy the Rothmans Yearbook every year and that was our bible. We knew every player in every division in England and we used to make our own game, like a management game, that was the probably the prequel to the Championship Manager game. We should have copyrighted that one! We were really like nerdy, freaky into football, and I was always playing the computer games, the management games instead of Fifa, where you play. I’ve always been into coaching or management and picking teams. I used to coach the younger boys in my local streets. We used to make a street team for these tournaments and I was the boss.

Kelly: How old are you at this point?

Ole: 13 or 14. So probably I’ve always had this manager in me. Then I played at Manchester United, and I didn’t know if I had the personality to be a manager. It is different to managing now. Then I got injured, and that’s the moment where I decided I need to stay in the game. That’s the time where I decided I will start all these coaching courses and starting to write whatever Sir Alex says.