Viking’s co-head coaches prepare for home Champions League tie with Bayern Munich
Bjarte Lunde Aarsheim and Morten Jensen will lead Viking Stavanger into the club’s first home Champions League match, against Bayern Munich on Tuesday, having overseen the team’s rise since their appointment as joint head coaches in November 2020.
The two men first discussed the idea of managing together a decade earlier and both worked part-time in local football before moving into coaching. Aarsheim played almost 300 games for Viking and later began coaching after a long playing career; Jensen’s playing ambitions were curtailed by injury before spells in college soccer in the United States and Norway’s lower divisions and a managerial role at Havørn. They had been assistants to Bjarne Berntsen and, when interviewed for the top job, presented a 120-page dossier and a slide that helped persuade chief executive Eirik Bjørnø and sporting director Erik Nevland to appoint them as a joint managerial team.
They have a clear recruitment and coaching pitch. “When we recruit players, we say something bold.” Jensen says: “If you come to Viking and play for us, we’re going to be the best coaches you ever had.” Aarsheim recalled their earlier conversation: “I worked in a bank, he was in the oil and gas industry, we both had local teams part-time. And I remember we said: ‘Hey, we should take a team together one day.’” Jensen characterised Aarsheim as “He’s always calm, collected, analytical,” and the pair describe a working relationship in which Aarsheim generally oversees defensive work while Jensen focuses on attack.
Their collaboration produced last season’s Eliteserien title, secured ahead of Bodø/Glimt, ending a long wait since Viking’s previous championship in 1991 and following a club history that included relegation in 2017. Jensen said: “In the first two years we learned a lot of things that we’ll never do again.” The club has leaned into local player development and a close-knit dressing room: Bjørnø said, “We’ve done it with a lot of people that care for each other,” adding, “We’re trying to enjoy the ride together, and that makes us a lot stronger. When you have success together, it makes such a big difference when you actually feel that you’re friends.” Nevland added: “It just gives us a feeling that everything we do means more.”
Preparations this week have combined detailed tactical work and man-management. A video meeting before training focused on ways to exploit SK Brann’s high press ahead of a trip to Bergen four days before the Bayern match; Jensen warned the squad: “They killed us last year out there, remember that.” The coaches’ meeting began at 8.30am and a six-strong staff selected 10 short clips for the players; Aarsheim closed training sessions with defensive drills while Jensen worked with forwards, and the pair watched parts of a session side-by-side from the stand while light rain fell.
On the training-ground dynamic, Aarsheim said: “We’re going to be better in the first duel, we’re going to be better than them in the second-ball phase, it’s going to be important.” Jensen outlined how disagreements are resolved: “Then we’ll discuss, loudly sometimes, with the rest of our staff in the coaching room and will both have to defend our choices and reasoning to them. We’ll all discuss it until we have an agreement. But 99% of the time we are pretty agreed in terms of who to use in a particular game so it’s very seldom we waste time over that.” Aarsheim added: “I can read Morten in one second. If he really wants something from his stomach then I sense it: ‘OK, let’s go with that.’ It’s never been a problem.”
Players and staff point to trust within the group. Captain Zlatko Tripic said: “They give a lot of responsibility to the players and let us discuss things. If you ask everyone in the dressing room, there is huge respect for how they deal with things and have given us this comfort and confidence.” Jensen told players he wanted them to enjoy this period: “This should be the best period of their lives.” Seventy-two hours after that meeting the squad responded with a 2-0 win in Bergen.
Viking will host Bayern Munich on Tuesday in their inaugural home Champions League fixture, with Aarsheim urging players to regard the club ambitiously: “For us, Viking is Barcelona. The players have to understand that we see Viking as more than a club. In our heads, it’s the best team in the world.”