Stig Inge Bjørnebye is a happy man these days. At least as close to happy as a sport director of a football club ever gets because, as he says, "there always another match coming up".
After missing out on the playoffs for medals last season, the club he took charge of a little less than two years ago, AGF of Danish city Aarhus, managed to qualify this season.
It requires a place inside the top six after the initial 22 rounds and AGF improved by nine points compared to a year ago, thus qualifying as fourth. While the top two is too far a stretch, getting AGF on the podium is a distinct option. That is also where AGF thinks they belong which Bjørnebye is only too aware.
"The interest and the support around the club is probably top two or three in Denmark. Budget-wise, the base to fulfil the potential is there. The club is not in turmoil, it is very professionally run. I know for a fact the club is moving towards top three in Denmark. It's going to happen and the other clubs know it," Stig Inge Bjørnebye states with all the confidence of a man who had a very successful career as a player with not least Liverpool.
Still in love with Liverpool
The Norwegian still enjoys a very special relationship, he freely admits.
"I lived there for 12 years. I supported them since I was six, together with my father. It's a major part of my life. It's like a marriage for me", Bjørnebye says before adding how much the years at Anfield still do him good.
"I think, I benefit from the total experience of being in a club like Liverpool for that long and have that experience from the top level. Not only to make decisions and to operate as a sporting director, but football also has a lot to do with contacts and networking". He is networking with his favourite English club as well.
"But my contact with them is informal. We discuss things on a strategic level but we also discuss players, which we've done quite a few times", he says, while denying any sort of formal cooperation is on the cards between Liverpool and his current club.
Always looking forward
Bjørnebye, 53, ended his playing career with Blackburn in 2003 and took on a role as assistant manager to the Norwegian national team. A job he held for three years, but instead of pursuing a career as a coach, he opted to be a sporting director instead.
"I was never going to be a coach in the first place, I think, I was pretty clear on that. I was more interested in the overall view, the leadership and building a culture. I wanted to work on strategic stuff and the overall picture. The main thing for me was to not lean back and look into the past. I always wanted to look into the future", he says, while ruling out we were ever going to see him as a pundit in a TV-studio.
"It's not to speak negatively about any other ex-players, but I think there's a tendency among football players with success that they live the rest of their lives leaning on the past. I couldn't do that. I wanted to move on, move forward. I didn't want to be dependent on my past."
Loyal to the project
Stig Inge Bjørnebye opened his career as a sporting director with enormous success with Norwegian Rosenborg. They won the national title four times on the bounce from 2015 to 2018. They also added three cup-titles to their cabinet. A title they hadn't won for 12 years, before Bjørnebye arrived, while the national title had eluded them for five, before his stint.
It's been even longer since AGF won anything. The last title arrived in 1986, while the cup was last won in 1996. It is a massive task, Bjørnebye has undertaken in the second biggest city in Denmark, but clearly one he relishes, as he denies any sort of ambition to move up the career ladder in a bigger league.
"My brain doesn't work like that. I'm very loyal to the project. I'm very loyal to AGF and the project, we're running now. It's a project that we've only just started because we've signed on to a new stadium in Aarhus, which the city deserves".
"Continuity is something this club has lacked in the past. I have to respect the trust these people have given me. Continuity is key. I'm part of that project. If I'm here now looking at something else, it's the wrong focus for me. I'm here now looking at this project and the next four years. I'm not sitting in my chair now thinking in two years' time I'm in England or whatever."
