Bodo/Glimt's secret weapon: How an ex-fighter jet pilot has played a key role in the Norwegian minnows' meteoric rise to Champions League giant-killers

By his own admission, Mannsverk had no interest in football before he was fatefully contacted by Bodo/Glimt's director of football, Havard Sakariassen, following the club's disastrous relegation from the Eliteserien, Norway's top-flight, in 2016.

The reason Sakariassen wanted him had nothing to do with the sport; it was Mannsverk's experimentation and subsequent work with mindfulness-based mental training late in his time in the military that made him an attractive proposition after the setback of going down. It was something he even implemented during operations in Libya.

"The biggest reference of my professional reference is obviously [spending] more than 20 years as an active fighter pilot," Mannsverk tells GOAL. "And I entered that culture straight out of school. I didn't have any other professional references.

"For me, from day one, it was just the way it was: we have to focus on the things that we can control and be as prepared as possible. During the end of my career, all the way back in 2009-2010, just by coincidence, we tried out mental training. We just heard about mental training, that it was highly appreciated among top athletes. We didn't really know the content of it, but we tried it. It was well received by the pilots. The effect was really great.

"Even though I was a high-performing athlete in a way as a fighter pilot. I saw the benefit of this mental training. You start practicing what was probably one of the most important skillsets our forefathers had; if you survived 10,000-15,000 years ago, you had your margins on your side, if you were easily distracted by movements or noises, combined that with thinking that something was going to kill you, you reacted on autopilot. That really worked well back then.

"But we know that if you need to perform, you need to be present. And this mindfulness tool, it was actually a test. We did a scientific project around it. That was basically to increase our skills, to be aware when we lose attention, and be quick to refocus when we need to be focused. That's basically the training."

In 2026, most elite European clubs will have a mental coach on their staff, but Bodo - an unknown club from a tiny city with a population of 50,000 - were ahead of the curve. "When Bodo were relegated, Sakkariasen acknowledged that this was not due to lack of football skills, this was lack of mental resilience. He described this as 'a collective mental collapse', and they didn't have any way of training that in the club, so he started to look for something that he believed could fit for a football player.

"He came across the project we did many years ago. And he liked, obviously, how well it was received and the effect. And I think he also liked the method. I mean, mindfulness, meditation, back to basics. And he thought that if this worked for a fighter pilot, it might work for a football player as well. So he got the idea, he started the research, and that's how he called me one day."

Mannsverk admits he was hesitant to take on this unusual challenge at first, before throwing himself into his new role and seeing some significant early results after starting work in 2017, with the backing of Sakariassen and then-assistant coach Kjetil Knutsen, who has since become manager and overseen this era of unprecedented success.

"I was not on the search for something like that. I was fully busy in the military, I worked in the headquarters. I was like, 'OK, it's interesting. I can look at that as a challenge'.

"I obviously liked the method, but I told him 'I don't know anything about football', and he said 'that is not a problem, because we have plenty of people that have meanings and opinions about football, so we don't need that'. That was kind of a really, really nice way of dealing with it, because I was kind of a little bit scared. This is a little bit out of my comfort zone.

"I remember Kjetil Knutsen, who is the head coach now, was the assistant coach. He came to me after the [introductory] presentation, grabbed my shoulder, and said, 'I really believe in this'. It wasn't just to be polite. I understood that he really believed in it."

Midfielder Ulrik Saltnes was among the great early success stories of Mannsverk's sessions; having come close to quitting football in pre-season due to an unexplained chronic stomach issue, Saltnes went on to score 15 goals in 30 matches in Norway's second tier as Bodo were promoted straight back to the Eliteserien after finishing the 2017 season 16 points clear at the top.

Now 33, Saltnes remains part of the squad to this day, having become a reliable source of goals and assists across the club's meteoric rise in recent years. "It was almost a mental miracle because we changed a really bad situation into something really powerful," Mannsverk says.

"Obviously, when you see a big change, everybody starts believing in it more. We had some really nice stories in the beginning that fuelled the project. We also had stories of people growing as we went along."

Two years into Mannsverk's work with Bodo, the focus would shift away from what happened on the pitch and instead on individual mentality and performance. "We started getting results and combining our ways of looking at things. We understood that so many factors outside our control could impact the result, so we needed to refocus our limited time and energy on the things we could control more," he says.

The club would reap the rewards, claiming a historic first-ever Eliteserien title in 2020 despite being unfancied before a ball was kicked, courtesy of a record-breaking season that saw them win 26 out of 30 league games and plunder 103 goals in the process.

Bodo would retain their crown the following year, while also establishing themselves as a force in Europe, progressing from the Conference League, to the Europa League and finally to the Champions League last season. Meanwhile, further league titles arrived in 2023 and 2024.

Mannsverk would never take credit for this success, but it's clear the mental coach's work has played a significant role in the strides forward the club has taken since his arrival nine years ago. He believes it has been a case or marginal gains and focusing on their strengths, redeploying key learnings from his time in the air force.

"What is now part of our philosophy, is that even skilful people with a lot of capacity are still people," he tells GOAL. "We are all human beings, so we have the same challenges when we boil it down. We have the same challenges, but also the same opportunities.

"The challenges are like what I described about our forefathers: we struggle to stay focused, and we struggle with dramatic thinking. We focus on what could go wrong or end badly. We worry. We're full of fear, in a way, and all of this happens more or less on autopilot, through instinct. I think mindfulness-based mentality can help. One thing is that you can practice through meditation, but you can also implement it into your processes so that, collectively, we're able to be aware.

"Our philosophy is what we call a sustainable performance culture. Obviously, we want to perform at a high level for a long time, both as individuals throughout our careers and as an organisation, more or less forever. But sustainability also means understanding that we can't use more than we have. We have to take a building-block approach, brick by brick. It's not only about money or your own foundations, but also your knowledge, capacity, medical team, and everything else. You slowly grow and become bigger."

He continues: "Another basic principle is that if you're going to compete, you need to know yourself or your organisation. What are your strengths, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities? Focus on your strengths. It's not rocket science, but when people start talking about competing, they tend to look at their weaknesses. They think, 'I'm not good enough at this. I'll never be good enough at this,' or, 'The people we're competing against are much better than us'. As a team, we can recognise that and regulate ourselves back towards what matters.

"Another principle is that the best performance is always ahead of us. It's basically saying that we can always become a little bit better. We tend to lower our ambitions. Think about New Year's resolutions and the changes we promise to make in January. We often fail because we're too ambitious, aiming for 15 or 20 percent improvement.

"We try to be aware of that and always think about the one percent rule. Small improvements over time increase the chances of succeeding. The more we succeed, the stronger the compounding effect becomes. We can have lots of one percent projects, with different people working on small improvements. When everything comes together, we can have a much bigger effect."

While they have established themselves as entertaining challengers in UEFA's lower-tier competitions, last season's remarkable Champions League run propelled Bodo/Glimt into the wider consciousness. Having gone winless in their opening five league-phase games, leaving their hopes of progressing to the knockouts in serious jeopardy, the Superlaget picked up three incredible results to snatch a place in the play-off round, becoming the first-ever Norwegian club to get that far.

Playing their typical brand of possession-based, high-intensity football, they first held Borussia Dortmund away from home before downing English giants Manchester City in scintillating fashion in Norway and coming from behind to pick up a stunning victory at Atletico Madrid.

And their underdog story didn't end there; Bodo sent Serie A winners Inter packing in their play-off, winning both legs to the tune of a ridiculously impressive 5-2 aggregate scoreline to secure their place in the last 16 against all the odds,

"We tend to perform well in Europe when we're underdogs, especially when there seems to be no hope," Mannsverk says. "When we had three games left in the league phase, there was a 0.1 percent chance of progressing to the knockout stages. Everybody was more or less thinking, 'OK, we're done. Now we can just go out there and perform'. There was no fear and nothing to defend, and then we started performing."

However, while they really had no right being there in the first place, the nature of Bodo/Glimt's dramatic exit in the round of 16 posed a fresh challenge to Mannsverk. The Norwegian minnows had upset the odds once again in the first leg of their clash with Sporting CP, thumping the Portuguese giants 3-0 in Bodo to put one foot in the quarter-finals.

Somehow, they would capitulate in the return leg in Lisbon, as Sporting sensationally forced extra-time by levelling the aggregate score inside 90 minutes before striking twice more in the added period to triumph 5-0 on the night and break Bodo/Glimt's hearts - the winner arriving in stoppage time at the very end of the game.

Asked how he and the players faced up to that profound disappointment, Mannsverk says: "I actually asked for them to put a little more pain into that experience. It was about saying that 'it shouldn't have been like that. We're better than this'.

"I asked them how they felt when we were back in the locker room after the game. People started saying, 'I'm ashamed'. They weren't just disappointed; they were ashamed. Those are really strong negative feelings.

"I think that if you can remember that moment, when things are the way they are, you might be able to bring that experience into a later game when you feel the pressure building. You might think, 'I'm really scared of doing what is right, but I'm even more scared of having that awful feeling after the game if we lose'.

"It's a paradox. You use one fear to counter another fear, so you can force yourself to do the right thing. That was the idea. We actually talked about it to encourage them to be honest about what they really felt and use that more constructively in a future situation."

Bodo/Glimt will go again in this season's Champions League for just the second time ever, having come through two qualification rounds to secure their place at European football's top table. Their league phase campaign got underway with a 5-0 hammering at the hands of German juggernaut Bayern Munich, but that was perhaps understandable.

Bodo have begun their European travails against the backdrop of a title race for the ages in Norway. With eight games to go, they are neck and neck with holders Viking at the top of the Eliteserien table, with the two clubs remarkably sharing an identical record: 17 wins, two draws, three defeats, 56 goals scored, 20 conceded. Viking are only top courtesy of their superior head-to-head record, with a potential title-decider to come between the two rivals on October 30.

At this pinch point in the season, it is Mannsverk's job to keep the players' minds focused as they oscillate between the intensity of their domestic battle and their fresh European challenge. Bodo finished as runners-up to Viking in 2025, meaning they had to go through the lottery of qualifiers to reach the Champions League.

"We shouldn't win or become champions because Viking perform badly," Mannsverk tells GOAL. "We need to perform well or brilliantly to become champions. But there could still be a distraction when we start thinking, 'We really need to beat them'. As I said, we become easily distracted. We try to remember that the other team's performance isn't within our control. We can't really control the other team. We just need to focus on ourselves.

"The Champions League brings in a lot of money, so that could also be a factor. Obviously, we need to become champions. It doesn't really matter whether we're struggling to beat Viking or another team; it's important for us to become champions. But again, we can turn that around and ask what the most important games are for us at the end of the season. It might not be the Champions League. It might be the domestic league because winning it increases our chances of being in the Champions League next year."

Another consideration is that the Norwegian football season runs from April to November, meaning there is basically no room for pre-season when the Champions League is factored in. "We kind of never get the break," Mannsverk continues. "You also lose the opportunity to have a pre-season where you can start work from scratch. So you always have to kind of find the balance between playing games and also develop the team or develop players and recovery and everything.

"When I started in 2017, I remember that it was common to start talking about, 'we are fatigued and the season is almost over'. That has changed. Luckily, because there is no end in a way. We just keep on going. So that way of thinking, that mentality is gone.

"You are always in. So what's important for us and that is the most dominant factor within mental training is your ability to take recovery. Recovery, recovery, recovery. We have to kind of save some energy here and save some energy there. So that is what we try to focus on all the time. And we have intensified that."

Mannsverk believes a consistent approach is key for Bodo/Glimt as they pursue both domestic and European success, a journey that continues on Wednesday as they take on Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League for the second season running.

"One principle for us is not to change our routines. People are quite sensitive to changes," Mannsverk says. "If you suddenly spend 10 minutes more watching videos or there are other small changes, it can stress you a little bit more because you start thinking, 'Oh, this is a very important game'.

"On the other hand, we also think we need to be able to deal with that. We might even want to introduce some extra stress to make sure they can handle it. But the basic thing is that it's just a game. It doesn't matter whether it's Atletico Madrid or Rosenborg in Norway. It's just a game. We do things the same way and prepare in the same way.

"We believe you become good at what you practice. If you practice routines, they become more or less automatic. You don't really have to focus on them; they just happen. That applies to routines for recovery, switching off, and so on. The answer is that we don't really change the way we work with them.

"However, we do discuss the pitfalls. Especially if you're doing well in Europe and beating great teams, you need to be aware that when you return to the domestic league, the opposition really want to beat you. We might see a totally different picture. We try to recognise that as a potential pitfall. We might relax a little bit or lower the bar slightly, and we've seen that happen many times."

As Bodo/Glimt continue on their upward trajectory and look to establish themselves as a Champions League club, Mannswerk is their secret weapon, and his work will continue to be a central pillar of their approach - even if he refuses to take individual credit for their success.