Football’s ability to create farcical stories is countless, but this one about the YMCA club in Norway’s Eliteserien is still quite impressive. nonsense. But that’s exactly where KFUM-Kameratene Oslo find themselves: They make their senior debut with a home match against HamKam on Tuesday.
Although KFUM remains a local community club (it has only 3,000 people on its territory and is reached by a pedestrian crossing), their rise has been meticulously planned. “We have learned from year to year,” says managing director Tor-Erik Stenberg. “Small changes to become more and more professional.” So they started by giving players amateur contracts, then moved training from the evening to the day, then focused on better marketing, etc. This season, the team was strengthened with funds to develop multiple features, added a match analyst, expanded their medical department and took the team abroad for warm weather training.
Logical and patient growth may be unusual in football, but Stenberg attributes KFUM’s success to its culture, not its processes. “We are a YMCA club,” he says. “We have a Christian foundation with Christian values: forgiveness, love, compassion. This doesn’t mean we won’t fight on the field because football is football. “That doesn’t mean we don’t get angry, but it’s about how we act before and after.”
This philosophy was embodied by KFUM manager Johs Moesgaard, who was wisely brought in as an assistant after the club realized that his predecessor, Jørgen Isnes, was doing too well and would soon be poached by a richer rival. “We look for people who understand people first, who understand that results are a product of how you treat people,” Stenberg says. “Johs knows how to mix a group, how to develop people within the group; This is his main skill. And if you can create a group with a common understanding of how to play, how to behave, such a group will die for each other and you will get better results.”
As a result, potential signees know for sure that if they join KFUM, they will have a good time making good friends. “But you’ll never get rich,” says Stenberg. “So it attracts people who like that stuff. And of course, we’ve developed a lot of players now, so young players like to come to us and enjoy it.”
Moesgaard admits that his main responsibility is to create the right environment for his players and points out that the Christian values that KFUM represents are also universal values; There are not many Christians in its staff, but there are Muslims and atheists. “Everyone is important and everyone has equal opportunities,” he explains. “As the slogan says, ‘life club’. A place where you feel respected, where you feel safe, where you feel like you mean something.”
But being kind to people doesn’t mean lowering standards. “In Norway we use a lot of excuses: ‘I don’t have money, I don’t have this, I don’t have that,’ says Moesgaard. We are a small club, we have few resources, but anything is possible. Stop whining, just go to work and anything can be done.”
The drive to make the best of everything is central when scouting potential signings, who must also be the right kind of player for the club’s unquestionably 3-4-3 short passing style. “I care about winning players with X Factor,” says Moesgaard. “I like players who have that extra edge in their game. We find players from the lower leagues – players who sat on the bench at other clubs or were told ‘you won’t succeed here’ – but we see something extra. We feel like I can highlight their skills through my leadership, and I’m very participative, not that harsh. “I maintain close contact with my players because I believe that the interaction between us makes them more comfortable, more confident, and more courageous to make mistakes in the game.”
As an example, Moesgaard cites 21-year-old Obilor Okeke, a winger with questionable decision-making but a wealth of potential that no previous manager has been able to unlock. But Moesgaard was confident he could get to him and, excited by his ability to dribble at breakneck speed, plucked him from the Fredrikstad reserves and then organized the team to highlight his strengths. Similarly, Mo Lion Njie is a defender who plays very well with the ball but lacks defensive intelligence. “So,” says Moesgaard, “we worked on that weakness, put runners around him to protect him, and he controlled the game.”
Despite their new status, KFUM will remain true to their method because, unusually for a team with a limited budget, they believe their advantage over their rivals is a technical one. “We are very good at moving the ball, passing the ball; we keep short distances between our players, so when we lose the ball we can regain control,” says Moesgaard. “But when the other team had better physique, that’s when the challenge started for us; dealing with what’s going on in the boxes and also in the set plays. “This is where I wonder where we are the most.”
But whatever happens from here, where they are means KFUM has already won, and their story will forever be in the annals of the game. “Football life is quite cynical,” says Moesgaard. “So I thought a lot about my father and my daughter, who had been taking care of me and had been suffering from cancer for a while. All this is going through your head; You make the people closest to you proud.”