Løvehjerte - Ståle Solbakken

Title: Løvehjerte
Author: Ståle Solbakken
Genre: Memoir
Rating: 4/5
# pages: 192
Date read: January 2018

Ståle Solbakken has been head coach in FC Copenhagen two times. Both times he has managed to create what many observers call "the best Danish club team of all time".

In this book, he for the first time ever invites the reader in behind the scenes, explains the tactics, negotiates the contracts and strives for the small improvements that can make FC Copenhagen a competitive player in the European football society as a whole.


I hadn't quite expected my first book of the year to be a book about football (=soccer)!! My husband is very proud ;-) But I've long been intrigued by FCK's trainer, Ståle Solbakken, so when my husband came home with this book a few days ago, I immediately picked it up. As it turned out, I'm glad I did, as it turned out to be a really interesting read - even for a non-football enthusiast like myself. It was interesting to read how Ståle came to FCK in the first place... and how he came back again, after a few years elsewhere. He's always come across as a no-nonsense person to me, and that also seemed the case in this book, where he took a down-to-earth and informal attitude to most things.

There is of course a lot of name-dropping in this book (there'd have to be, under the circumstances!), but I'd picked up enough through my years of being married to an FCK-fan to be able to follow along just fine, and at the end of the day, I'm glad to have read it.