Eirik Horneland should be the next ASSE coach. Ben Karamoko, trained in Forez, played several seasons in Norway under the colors of Haugesund. He introduced his former trainer Eirik Horneland (49 years old) to our colleagues at Poteaux-Carrés. Excerpts.
Ben Karamoko (Ex-ASSE): “On a human and sporting level, I really appreciated our collaboration. It was my first experience abroad. In Haugesund, Eirik managed to build a good team where there were obviously quite a few Norwegian players but also foreigners, Africans Of course Ibrahima Wadji, whom you know well in Sainté.
Management appreciated
Ben Karamoko (Ex-ASSE): “I liked Eirik's management, he did everything to keep us united. We weren't the strongest team but we really felt that we were a good group, solid and united. Eirik put emphasis on work and insisted that we all talk together. He made sure that we mixed together, that we got to know each other better, he encouraged us to talk with the players that we didn't talk about. Eirik has the language. worked so that the Norwegians integrate us well and that we make the effort to exchange with them.
On the pitch, we stripped down, we really played for each other. We ran a lot and we had results. We performed in Haugesund thanks to Eirik. I almost never played under his orders because I was originally supposed to join Sarpsborg, a club whose colors I finally defended 2 or 3 years later, in 2021. […]
Eirik is very close to his players, very frank and very fair with them. He's not afraid to bench his best player if he doesn't make the effort. This is the image I remember of him, he is a coach who says things clearly, without embellishment. He's someone who gives a lot of voice, who moves a lot. I think we will like him at Sainté but we will have to give him a little time because there is the language barrier. This barrier is the only thing that scares me a little because for the rest, how to manage a group, a locker room, that will do it I think!
Eirik lives the matches to the fullest, a bit like Diego Simeone. Sometimes I said to myself: “He’s crazy! »I don't know if he's still like that because we mustn't forget that it was the first time he was the number one coach of a professional team. Haugesund was a bit like “his club”; he finished his playing career there, he began his reconversion as an assistant coach before returning there when I knew him as a number, knowing that in the meantime he was coach of Norway's youth teams.”
Dry cleaning for ASSE
Ben Karamoko (Ex-ASSE): “Eirik asked us to exert strong pressure. We moved forward very quickly, we had a good duo in front with Wadji and Koné who kept the ball well. Eirik asked us to move forward, we did not defend by retreating. We went to the pressing, we did it in a coordinated way and we went really hard. In Brann, apparently, after having exchanged with followers of the last seasons of Tippeligaen, he changed his game a little, more based on possession, but he still kept his base, this fierce desire to do the pressing.
I believe that now Eirik's preferred pattern is 4-3-3 but at the time in Haugesund we played 4-4-2. Every second ball, you had to win them, Eirik really insisted on that. We had to press hard. It was a different kind of football than the one I had known at Saint-Etienne. It shocked me but I loved it.”
Workouts that will rock!
Ben Karamoko (Ex-ASSE): “With him, we had very intense training sessions in Haugesund. They didn't joke about the defensive work and they worked well on the combinations between our attackers. It doesn't shock me that Sainté went to get him. Eirik is a real coach, a leader of men, it is his adaptation that will be difficult for him Until now he has only had experiences in his country, in Norway, we are not going. lie to yourself, it's another level than the Tippeligaen, even if the Norwegian championship has evolved a lot and its best clubs do not perform poorly in European competitions. […]
It was Eirik who managed the training sessions. Karl Oskar was older, he talked a lot with the players. He shouted less than Eirik, he was calmer. […] Eirik manages to bring out the best in players. He is very attentive to the investment that the players put into training.”
Full interview to be found here!
