EGIL OLSEN

10/10/2012

Egil Olsen
Egil Roger Olsen (born 22 April 1942 in Fredrikstad), nicknamed Drillo, is aNorwegian football manager and former footballer. He is best known as a highly successful manager of the Norway national team. He has since been manager of the Iraqi national football team, his departure from which caused considerable attention. In January 2009, he made a comeback as manager for the Norwegian national football team.

He managed the Norwegian team from 1990 to 1998, guiding them toWorld Cup final tournaments in 1994and 1998, Norway peaking as number two on the FIFA ranking. He worked from 2005 to 2007 as an analyst for Vlerengens IF before joining Expekt.com. In 1995 as Norway manager Egil Olsen used one of his three votes to nominate Norwegian women's football star Hege Riise as the FIFA World Player of the Year. The first time a woman player had been nominated in what is seen as a men's football award. In June 1999, the then 57-year-old Olsen made his appearance in English football, when he was named as manager of Wimbledon. He reportedly turned down an approach from Celtic, to take charge of the London club. Olsen has stated that his favorite player at the club was Welsh international Ben Thatcher. He remained in charge for less than a year, and was sacked just before the club slipped out of the Premiership, having been top division members since 1986.Robbie Earle said that "Olsen just didn't know how to get the best out of us".He has since returned to Norway. On 19 May 2007, Olsen rejected an offer to manage the Iraq national football team citing a busy schedule. However, the Iraqi football president vowed not to give up on his signature and on 17 September, Olsen signed a three-year contract. In February 2008, Iraq sacked Olsen without telling him. He had tried to contact them by several means, but received the message when a new manager was installed, this action on the Iraqis part was very unexpected and their reason was said to be that they did not believe Olsen was strict enough.

On 14 January 2009, it was announced that Olsen would once again manage the Norway national football team in an interim period until a successor for ge Hareide can be found. In their first game under his management, they beat Germany 01 in a friendly away game in Dsseldorf. It is the first time Norway has won against Germany, since the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. With Drillo as manager Norway rose from rank 59 in 2009 to rank 11 in 2011 on the FIFA rankings. Olsen has sometimes been called a "football professor" for his scientific approach to the game, and was arguably one of the first managers to use video analysis of matches.He has collected statistical data to find out which playing styles are the most efficient. As Norway manager, he argued that as Norway didn't have the players to beat the best teams, they needed a smarter playing style than them, and one that fit Norway's skills. Ironically, his preferred style of football has historically often been called primitive. He has found that breakaways played an important role immediately prior to many goals, and that counter-attacks after breakaways should be carried out as fast and directly as possible before the opponent can organise their defense. According to Olsen, only few goals are scored against what he calls an "established defense". As a large number of transverse passes or trying to play out an established defense with short passes and combinations increases the chance of a breakdown against, often in dangerous positions, his strategy was to make long passes against an established defense when no direct path forwards could be found. More precisely, defenders should in these cases play high, long passes towards attackers or flank players. His use of a player with good heading abilities as a target man on the flank, such as Jostein Flo, was a major break with the established idea that all flank players should be small, quick and good dribblers.

Record Team Nat From To G W D L GF GA Win %

Lyn

1985 1988

Aalesund

1989 1989

Norway U23

1990 1990

Norway

1990 1998

91 51 26 14 181 63 56.04

Vlerenga

1998 1999

20 11 1 8

55

Wimbledon

1999 2000

43 11 3 8

25.58

Norway U19

2002 2003

2 1

57.14

Fredrikstad

2004 2005

26

7 11

30.77

Iraq

2007 2008

3 1 11

33.33

Norway

2009 Present 37 20 5 12 46 38 54.05

Total

230 107 47 55 238 107 46.52