The Football Interview is a new series in which the biggest names in sport and entertainment join host Kelly Somers for bold and in-depth conversations about the nation's favourite sport.
We'll explore mindset and motivation, and talk about defining moments, career highs and personal reflections. The Football Interview brings you the person behind the player.
Interviews will drop on Saturdays across BBC iPlayer, BBC Sounds and the BBC Sport website. This week it will be shown on BBC One at 23:35 GMT (and after Sportscene in Scotland).
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is a Manchester United legend.
As a player, he scored their Treble-clinching injury-time winner against Bayern Munich in the 1999 Champions League final.
It was one of 126 goals he scored in 366 appearances for the club.
The Norwegian later managed the Red Devils for three years from 2018 - guiding them to second in the Premier League and also the Europa League final in 2021, before he was sacked after a poor run of form.
Capped 67 times by Norway, he played for his country at the 1998 World Cup - their last appearance on that stage, though they have recently qualified for next year's tournament in North America.
Solskjaer sat down with Kelly Somers to talk about his childhood, his legendary goal in the Nou Camp, why he would have been an accountant if not a footballer, and his dreams of managing his country in the future.
Kelly Somers: Ole, good to see you. Let's start with football. Why football? Why did you end up in the game?
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer: Because football is the best game in the world. I think it's such an easy game. It connects everyone. But for me, I can't remember life without football since I was young. I think my mum and dad, they told me one of the first things I kicked was one of the lamps. So I just enjoyed kicking! It's given me my life. Everything.
Kelly: Can you remember a moment when you thought not only could playing football be something you enjoy but potentially, 'I could make it'.
Ole: Not really because as a kid I always used to score goals, but when I got to 15/16 I was a very late developer, so then I thought I wasn't going to make it in football and I thought I would just enjoy football. Then I went into the army when I was 19 to 20 and that probably said OK, I wasn't going to be a footballer - but when I got back from the army I went for it for a couple of years and suddenly I was in the under-21 national team and playing for Molde and did well.
Kelly: That's quite a journey, isn't it? And that's quite a change to go from football, army, football. What did being in the army do for you?
Ole: It made me more independent. I had to grow up. Suddenly I wasn't living with my mum and dad and my sister any more. I think I became a lot more mature. I learnt a lot socialising with people from different places in the country. We were placed there together in a room of six or eight, and we just had to get on. It was a great year, actually.
Kelly: Is it mandatory to go into the army?
Ole: Yeah
Kelly: So you always knew you were going to have to do it?
Ole: Yes, unless you have a special talent or maybe you're in the national teams and all this.
Kelly: Didn't you have a special talent?
Ole: No, I didn't. We had like an army football team... we had a training session maybe once or twice. There was like a Norwegian championship of army teams. I was not in the team in my camp, so that's another thing... 'OK, I know I'm better than him, I will be better than him' ... but it's other people's view in that maybe I wasn't maybe strong enough or big enough in that team, so it was a kind of a revenge when you look back and say: 'OK, they didn't believe in me, but I showed all of them.'
Kelly: You had an illustrious playing career, but of course it's headlined by Manchester United. Talk to me about the first time you knew of a possibility to come over here to England - to one of the most decorated clubs in the world?
Ole: So for Norway, this is probably one of the most important games in my career. We played Norway against Azerbaijan and I scored two very good goals. Coincidentally, Jim Ryan - the assistant manager - was watching Ronny Johnsen, who we signed. He was sitting next to Mark McGhee, who at that time was Wolverhampton manager, chatting as they do. Mark McGhee is looking for a centre-forward, Jim Ryan's watching the game and I score two goals. So he thinks, 'OK, Wolverhampton will probably sign this boy'. He rang Sir Alex [Ferguson] that night and said: 'I think I found one and he won't be expensive. It's a cheap one, but we've got to be quick because Wolverhampton are also signing a centre-forward.' It went really, really fast.
Kelly: That must have been a whirlwind for you...
Ole: Brilliant. Absolutely top. But then you're never 100% sure until you signed the deal. But I more or less knew, so before my last game for Molde, I said to Age Hareide, who was the coach, that if I scored, I'm going to take my shirt off, throw it into the stands and run off the pitch. He said: 'No, you can't do that... but [if you have to] wait until 10 minutes before full-time.' That's exactly what happened. I think I scored a fifth goal, 5-1, and I just threw the shirt and ran off the pitch and we had no subs ready to come on, so we had to play a few minutes with 10 men. It was a whirlwind of a time. The media were outside my apartment. They wanted interviews and I just tried to stay away from all that.
Kelly: Was that all new? Like a whole new level of fame?
Ole: Of course. Because 18 months before Manchester United, I played for Clausenengen, my local team, in front of 50 people, so it was a big step up in attention. But I think I've been quite OK in handling these situations.
Kelly: I always ask players - and with you, it feels even more prominent because you've played in some of the biggest games - if you could relive one game from your career, what would it be?
Ole: Of course, the Champions League final in '99. I was 80 minutes on the bench like really unhappy with the manager - 'why don't you put me on?' - and we're losing the game and football's so emotional. You're so low and you want to get on the pitch. So 80 minutes of real agony but then I managed to play 15 minutes and those 15 minutes I'd really love to play again. It changed history, of course. It changed my life. It didn't make me a better footballer but that changed my life as in we made history and I was the one that was fortunate enough to score that goal. And so many men have come up to me and thanked me for giving them the best moment of their lives. [They say] 'Don't tell my wife, please, will you?'
Kelly: You mentioned before that you were annoyed with Sir Alex. Obviously you would have always wanted to start, but you gained this incredible reputation, didn't you? As a super sub. I know every footballer wants to start every game. How did you embrace that?
Ole: I had discussions with Sir Alex. I signed a long, long-term contract. What I did was I put my career in his hands really. I more or less said to myself: 'Just do your best.' I've seen so many strikers sulking when they're on the bench. I felt, 'OK they've played 70 or 80 minutes, defenders are tired, I can come on, I can make a difference, I'm fresh, as long as my head is fresh and my mentality is good'. If we were winning 1-0, I was never going to come on. At 0-0 I was like, 'don't score, don't score until he puts me on'. At 1-0 down, yeah, definitely I am coming on. At 2-0 up, he would always give me the 15-20 minutes just to make me feel part of it. He was very good at giving me enough minutes but I knew at 1-0 just to sit down as you're not going to come on. So 1-0 down against Bayern, I was like, 'come on then, it's like 20 minutes...' It is one of the best 13-15 minutes of my football career.
Kelly: When did management become the thing?
Ole: When I was a kid, I was very into football. Me and my cousin always used to buy the Rothmans Yearbook every year and that was our bible. We knew every player in every division in England and we used to make our own game, like a management game, that was the probably the prequel to the Championship Manager game. We should have copyrighted that one! We were really like nerdy, freaky into football, and I was always playing the computer games, the management games instead of Fifa, where you play. I've always been into coaching or management and picking teams. I used to coach the younger boys in my local streets. We used to make a street team for these tournaments and I was the boss.
Kelly: How old are you at this point?
Ole: 13 or 14. So probably I've always had this manager in me. Then I played at Manchester United, and I didn't know if I had the personality to be a manager. It is different to managing now. Then I got injured, and that's the moment where I decided I need to stay in the game. That's the time where I decided I will start all these coaching courses and starting to write whatever Sir Alex says.
Kelly: I read somewhere that you wrote everything, you kept a notebook?
Ole: Not everything, but yes I did suddenly start to try to - instead of just being a player that was told. I was learning from the best teacher in the world. How does he get the best out of all these players? What does he do tactically? What is he changing in his staff and changing the players? I just started keeping more of an eye on him and that part of football.
Kelly: It is the biggest club in the world, one of the biggest clubs. You knew that as a player but as a manager that pressure - particularly when things are not going right - must have been really tough?
Ole: I remember one game, against Everton. I'm stood there in my technical area, fourth official next to me. [Everton manager] Carlo Ancelotti comes across, so he's more or less in my technical area, and the fourth official says: 'Carlo, you need to get back into your technical area unless you want Ole's job.' Carlo, as Carlo is, he's always got a comment and a smile. He said: 'No, no, no. Too much pressure. That job is too much pressure.' So he walked back to his technical area and I thought, 'pressure is a privilege'. He always said that as well.
I felt privileged to be the manager of Manchester United, but of course it's not the same as playing. As a player, you just do your job. Suddenly now you're the manager, you're the face of everyone. You think about all these supporters, players, everything surrounding Manchester United. But that pressure is a privilege because I was allowed to do that and I was allowed to deal with it in my way. And that was having great staff around us, an environment in and around the club that was very positive. But in the end, it doesn't matter if you enjoy coming to work every day, training sessions... you need results and we unfortunately had a very bad six -week spell and that's too long at a club like Manchester United and they made a change, which is fine. Reflecting back on it, it was sad. We lost to Watford of course, and I knew this was more or less the end. I drove my family to the airport, they went back to Norway, and I was going to work. I got a text - 'Ole, I need to see you in my office' - and I knew what was going to happen, so I rang my wife and said: 'I'll catch you up, I'll probably be back home before you!'
Kelly: Did it feel a bit sudden?
Ole: Sudden but not surprising. If you don't get results, you do make a change, that's football. But I felt we had something going.
Kelly: Do you feel like when you look back on your period in charge that now people understand - given what's happened to Manchester United since and the struggles? Do you think you're given maybe the credit that you deserve for your time?
Ole: It's not about getting the credit, but it was the worst time to be the manager of Manchester United. You have Jurgen Klopp with his Liverpool team and you have Pep Guardiola with his Manchester City team. Best managers in the world at the time and probably the two best teams in the world at the time. But we got second and third. So with the staff, we had something going but we couldn't take the next steps. Hopefully we can get back as a club later on.
Kelly: What was it like growing up in your household? What can you remember?
Ole: Me as a kid, obviously, at school football in every recess or every break.
Kelly: Did you work hard at school?
Ole: I was decent at school and my best subject was maths, so if I wasn't a footballer I probably would be an accountant or something with numbers or maths.
Kelly: You are a dad now - three children - and you've passed the football bug on, I hear?
Ole: I think they're environmentally damaged! They all play football.
Kelly: And a little bit of history - your daughter made an appearance for Manchester United Women. I think you are the only father-daughter combination to have both played for Manchester United. That must make you incredibly proud?
Ole: I was really, really proud. It was an FA Cup game and we drove down. It was really good to see her. Her passion is football, she loves football. They love football and they enjoy it.
Kelly: Does your wife like football or does she have no choice?
Ole: We met on the football pitch, more or less. She was a very talented footballer. We used to have in Kristiansund every Tuesday and Thursday like a talent group that used to train at seven in the morning, seven until eight before school, and she was in that. Who wakes up at six to go football training? You go there to impress or be close to someone that you have a keen eye on. That is the reason I got up in the morning really - to play football with Silje.
Kelly: Tell me one thing about yourself that might surprise me?
Ole: I surprised you by saying I would have been an accountant, but I used to read and speak backwards, so I was quite good at that - reading backwards.
Kelly: How does that come about?
Ole: I don't know - it's just that's probably my sense of organising structure, seeing structures. More or less every every car I drive and you look at the licence plates and how can I rearrange those letters, or that number, or something.
Kelly: Your brain is always going, isn't it?
Ole: My brain is always going, yes, most of the time.
Kelly: If you could only achieve one more thing in your career, what would it be?
Ole: Not lifting a trophy for Manchester United as a manager - that's something that I would have liked to achieve. Hopefully we can do well in the World Cup with Norway, but then maybe to be the next one, who knows? You always set targets.
Kelly: You mean to be the next Norway manager?
Ole: Next Norway manager. My friend Stale [Solbakken] is there now. We're playing really well, we're going to the World Cup. I do really, really like managing. It is a great, great job being the manager of ambitious young men who want to achieve something together.
