There may be only one English club left in the Women’s Champions League, but there is an English manager who is stepping up to the plate in the competition and making history on the east side of the North Sea.
Former Manchester United assistant manager Martin Ho takes his new club, Norwegian SK Brann, to Lyon on Wednesday to face the record eight-time European champions as they continue to break new ground against Norway’s underdogs.
“Getting to the group stage is like being in the Champions League final for this club,” says Ho. “The players can now enjoy the moment against world-class opponents, we can go into these matches with some confidence and freedom. We are making history by becoming the first Norwegian club to have men’s and women’s teams advance to the Champions League group stages and I am very happy for the players. I am under no illusions that getting out of the group will be really difficult “We’re not, but we’ll try anyway.”
While Manchester United was eliminated in the Women’s Champions League qualifiers, Brann took its place in the group stage by eliminating the Bulgarian team Lokomotiv Stara Zagora, the Belgian club Anderlecht and the strong club of Scottish women’s football, Glasgow City. They have since claimed victories over Czech side Slavia Prague and Austrian champions St Polten in a European run that is crucial for the club from Bergen, a picturesque seaside town with a population of less than 300,000.
In May, Ho, who was born and raised in Liverpool’s Mossley Hill, was at Wembley for the Women’s FA Cup final as Manchester United manager Marc Skinner’s No.2 and had previously been an assistant to Casey Stoney at the club.
The 33-year-old admitted that leaving United was difficult but the chance of becoming No.1 abroad was too good to turn down. “It was really difficult and it was very difficult to have that conversation with the club, especially with Marc, as a coach and as a person. More importantly, I had and still have a really good relationship with Marc,” he says.
“I also had the opportunity to go to other parts of Scandinavia and England. I had to weigh this and look at it from a professional perspective. There’s only so much you can do as an assistant before taking the next step, and I never want to step on anyone’s toes as a head coach.
“I’ve been an assistant for 10 years and you eventually want to sink your teeth into something. The success we had at Man Utd last season was probably the pinnacle of where I could go as an assistant. I had a spark in my stomach to see if I was ready for management and it was the perfect project, an opportunity I couldn’t turn down.
“Ultimately, this was about me taking the next step, challenging myself and stepping out of my comfort zone into management. I think I’ve done that tenfold now by coming to a different country with a different culture. I probably wasn’t expecting this [Champions League football] “I’m making such rapid progress in my career and sometimes I have to pinch myself.”
Moving abroad also intrigued Ho, who added: “If I had stayed in Britain, you know the league, you know how things work, whereas here learning from different people and different experiences can only help me in the long run.
“Some people thought that maybe I chose an easier job, but it is not an easier job. They are a big club in Norway and they expect a lot. There is pressure. I’ve probably made more in the last 10 weeks alone than I have in the last 12 years. When you leave England you learn that there is so much more going on in football environments and that there is a lot of good work being done in different countries.
“It made me see football from a different perspective, not just from an English perspective. It was truly exhilarating. I would like to think that I can hopefully have more of these experiences in different countries in the future. England is a completely different beast compared to here; “When you look at the resources, structure, revenues, investments, it’s a completely different perspective.”
There have been some difficulties, especially the language barrier, but he hopes to be able to hold conversations in Norwegian by next summer, after 12 months of study.
Brann is “rebuilding” after losing more than half a dozen senior players to Manchester United last season, including Norwegian midfielder Lisa Naalsund. But Ho, who coached at Everton and Liverpool earlier in his career, wants to use his experience working with youth in England to develop young stars.
The former Everton men’s youth player adds: “To say you produce your own players is a huge thing and that’s what we want, to create that way.
“My final message to players before every game is ‘go and have fun’; you started playing as a kid for a reason and that shouldn’t be taken away from you as a professional.”