Egil Olsen - Football Philosophy

Football Philosophy

Olsen has sometimes been called a "football professor" for his scientific approach to the game, and was arguably one of the first managers to use video analysis of matches. He has collected statistical data to find out which playing styles are the most efficient. As Norway manager, he argued that as Norway didn't have the players to beat the best teams, they needed a smarter playing style than them, and one that fit Norway's skills. Ironically, his preferred style of football has historically often been called primitive.

He has found that breakaways played an important role immediately prior to many goals, and that counter-attacks after breakaways should be carried out as fast and directly as possible before the opponent can organise their defense. According to Olsen, only few goals are scored against what he calls an "established defense". As a large number of transverse passes or trying to play out an established defense with short passes and combinations increases the chance of a breakdown against, often in dangerous positions, his strategy was to make long passes against an established defense when no direct path forwards could be found. More precisely, defenders should in these cases play high, long passes towards attackers or flank players. His use of a player with good heading abilities as a target man on the flank, such as Jostein Flo, was a major break with the established idea that all flank players should be small, quick and good dribblers.

He is opposed to stationary offensive players, and argues that offensive runs (also for players that do not possess the ball) should be carried out as often as possible when one's team has the ball, as multiple simultaneous runs are very difficult to defend against. He also holds the idea that breakthrough passes to the area behind the opponent's defensive line should be sought out very often, and that frequent offensive runs towards this area is important. He also coined the phrase "å være best uten ball" (roughly "to be best at off-the-ball running", lit. "to be best without the ball") which gained some fame in Norway. It was originally said about Øyvind Leonhardsen, a player doing an exceptional number of runs during games.

Olsen is also an ardent supporter of zone defense, as opposed to man-to-man marking. He also argues that players with extreme skills (extremely fast, extremely good headers, extremely good dribblers, extremely good passers etc.), as opposed to players with only good all-round skills, are important in football.

His long-ball philosophy, use of the 4–5–1 system and his teams' often extremely successful defending earned him a bad reputation of boring football, even during the period when his results as Norway manager were astonishing. However, later in his first tenure, Norway showed signs of moving away from this philosophy–notably in their wins against Brazil in 1997 and 1998.

His thoughts, together with those of Nils Arne Eggen, have had a strong impact on Norwegian football. Norwegian club sides generally make many runs without ball, play zone defense and are very focused on fast counter-attacks. The idea of playing long balls against an established defense, however, has become increasingly unfashionable in Norway in later years.