Berntsen pursues fresh glory

By Paul Saffer

Norway's successes at women's level are legion: 1993 European champions, 1995 world champions, 2000 Olympic gold medallists. And while the men’s team have twice qualified for the FIFA World Cup finals, beating holders Brazil in 1998, perhaps their most famous result of all came 17 years earlier, and has a strong link to the Norwegian side preparing for tonight's UEFA WOMEN'S EURO 2005™ semi-final against Sweden.

England defeated
On 9 September 1981, England came to Oslo for a World Cup qualifier and on 15 minutes went ahead through Bryan Robson. However, 20 minutes later Tom Lund's cross flew straight in under pressure from Roger Albertsen - who was initially credited with the equaliser - and just before the break Hallvar Thoresen gave Norway a 2-1 lead they never surrendered.

Sensational result
Considering Norway's previous best result in a full international against England was a 4-1 defeat, and that 364 days earlier that had lost 4-0 at Wembley, the win was a sensation, provoking radio commentator Bjørge Lillelien's famous outburst, invoking a number of British historical figures and, in English, informing then UK prime minister Maggie Thatcher: "Your boys took a hell of a beating."

'Biggest souvenir'
At right-back that day was Bjarne Berntsen, and 24 years on he is the coach leading out Norway, in England, for their last-four encounter with their neighbours. That night remains a vivid memory for him for two reasons. He told uefa.com: "We won 2-1, and I swapped shirts with Kevin Keegan. That was tremendous for me because he was my hero from my young days. That's the biggest souvenir I have from my career - his shirt hanging on my wall."

Current focus
However, he will not be invoking Lund and Thoresen, Lillelien-style, during his pre-match team-talks. "They know a lot but I try to talk a little as possible about that and discuss as much as we can about what we need to do to get better," he said.

Gender differences
An experienced coach in men’s football before taking his current role at the start of 2005, Berntsen is in a good position to compare the male and female games." It's very similar with what actually happens on the field," he said. "The biggest difference is in training because the ladies ask for a lot more input from me to find out what their strengths are, what they need to work on. They demand a lot more from me than I am used to with men."

'Kept believing'
So what has been the secret to improving Norway's fortunes, having begun his reign by losing two friendlies against France? "The main thing is my patience, even if the results didn't go as we thought in the winter I didn't worry about that because I knew the way we were going was the right way. The most important thing was that I kept believing."