The Man Behind Bodø/Glimt's Champions League Miracle | Bjørn Mannsverk (E407)
The High Performance Podcast
High Performance
4.6 • 4.8K Ratings
🗓️ 4 May 2026
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Bjørn Mannsverk is the former F-16 fighter pilot who swapped combat missions for football kits to lead Bodø/Glimt on a historic rise. Under his guidance, the small Norwegian club achieved the impossible, dismantling giants like Manchester City, Inter Milan, and Atletico Madrid despite a stadium capacity of just 8,200.
In this episode, Bjørn explains how he transformed the team by strictly banning the word "winning" and replacing it with a performance-driven culture built on "awareness training." He breaks down his "Fighter Pilot Method," including high-pressure "friction meetings" and the on-pitch huddle known as "The Ring" that refocused his team after every goal.
Bjørn also explores how treating a dressing room like a combat squadron drove the club’s revenue from €4.2m to €80m and why letting go of ambition is the ultimate key to elite success.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're a former F-16 fighter pilot. |
| 0:07.0 | You've never played football, you've got no interest in the sport, |
| 0:12.0 | and yet the club that you work with have just beaten Manchester City, |
| 0:16.0 | Athletic All Madrid, then into Milan and the Champions League. |
| 0:23.9 | Tell us, how does that happen? |
| 0:28.9 | Bjorn, welcome to high performance. |
| 0:29.9 | Thank you very much. |
| 0:32.7 | Now, you're a former F-16 fighter pilot. |
| 0:34.0 | You've never played football. |
| 0:35.9 | You've got no interest in the sport. |
| 0:37.7 | And yet the club that you work with have just beaten Manchester City, Athletical Madrid, and into Milan in the Champions League. Tell us, |
| 0:43.4 | how does that happen? How does that happen? Now, I think we have to go back to my background |
| 0:49.5 | as a fighter pilot, and to keep it short, we did an experiment in 2009, 2010, that was mental training. |
| 1:00.7 | We didn't really know what it was, but we just was looking for something we could train |
| 1:05.2 | outside the normal fighter pilot stuff. |
| 1:09.6 | And it was quite a new method in a way. |
| 1:14.8 | And it was well received by the pilots, |
| 1:18.3 | by other personnel at the squadron, |
| 1:20.6 | and the effect was also very good. |
| 1:24.7 | And then some years later in 2016, when Boreglint were supposed to celebrate their 100 |
| 1:31.7 | anniversary, and it was a crash and burned. |
| 1:36.3 | So even though they believed that they had the skills to remain at the top level, they didn't |
... |
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