BODØ (VG) Seven well-established people with an average age of 29 were replaced by four at 22 and a teenager in “Nye Rosenborg”. Kjetil Rekdal (53) is reacting to the fact that his team is still facing anxiety.
– The sheer impatience around us, it surprised me, Rekdal mirrors the next 2-2 in the series starting as ‘RBK’s Underdog of All Time’ Towards Bodo/Glimt.
On his way to his league premiere, Rekdals Rosenborg went through three months of grueling driving, changing formations and partly new playing principles. They have a new coach – and the squad has been rejuvenated with Renzo Giampaoli (22), Tobias Burquet (22), Victor Jensen (22), Sam Rogers (22) and Brian Fiabima (19). Four of them were working at Aspmyra.
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– It’s a young team, a new coaching team and we have a great support team that will be able to use their expertise. I’m not used to having a lot around me. It takes some time to adjust. But the motivation inside is very good. I think it’s a bit naive to think that a young team will be created overnight, says the veteran coach.
On his way home from Bodø to Trondheim, he received another pat on the shoulder and the message “Now we have something to believe!” From a passing supporter. But the surroundings – as Ryckdahl feels – were as optimistic as this guy at the airport.
– Is it about Rosenborg?
– Yes that’s fine. But let us now have the opportunity to shape ourselves out there, then. Pressure and expectations are fine. But that impatience – the unwillingness to admit or accept that it’s actually been down for several years… I changed a generation from an average age of 28-29 to 22. It wasn’t done overnight.
– How did you feel impatient?
– You just noticed it. You are using the story as a reference for your starting point today. We want to recreate this story, I’m sure we will, but first we have to be the best in Norway. Rosenborg hasn’t been anywhere near the level of Bodø/Glimt for several years. Mauli was in the foreground. Last year, Viking were on top, even Lillestrøm – as a newly promoted team.
– We are having a bad time, yes – because of impatience. Rijkdahl believes there is a lack of competence and understanding of how football is made.
– In your experience, what is the best stable configuration?
– The smallest category from 17 to 22 years old is 50 percent. Then you have 25 percent from 23 to 28 years old, and then you have 25 percent there. The main focus in stability should be development potential. We are missing some players between the ages of 24 and 28 who are in ‘prime time’ and have completed their development.
– But I didn’t want to exchange our stable with anyone. When we play 11 against 11 in training, it’s practically like an elite league game, he said.
From the Glimt match, he indicated how many goal chances were created (8 after counting VG) and that they should actually go 2-0 up before the home team tied. Rosenborg’s own measurements showed, according to Rekdal, that all of the players ran more than one mile at Aspmyra, about 13 kilometers away.
But it is being asked if everyone who buys a ticket to Lerkendale for the first home game of the year against Odd comes to watch the sprint and back.
It will be a different place, a different surface, we play at home, and expectations will rise as to what we will achieve. We just have to deal with it and prepare well.
– How much do you think you have the ball against Odd on Sunday?
50 percent, maybe. But we don’t know. Odd is working on something new, we have to study it, which is probably unfamiliar to Norwegian teams, with slightly different constellations. Then you have to take control of it, says Rekdal prior to his Lerkendal debut as Rosenborg coach.
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