Olsen celebrated his 75th birthday on Wednesday, August 14th. The Dane, who lives in Brussels, had a quiet birthday, as he says himself. "That comes with age," he laughs. Olsen retired from active work in the football world about ten years ago. Nowadays, he doesn’t watch much football anymore. "After I retired from the national team years ago, I also stopped watching a lot of football. I used to watch maybe 400 matches a year. These days, if I don't enjoy the matches, I prefer watching Netflix instead," he says with a smile.
Back to then
That was very different during his time at Ajax. Olsen arrived in Amsterdam in the summer of 1997, succeeding Louis van Gaal. "Fantastic," he begins when asked about his time at Ajax. "Ajax's football was the way I wanted to play, but also how I wanted to coach a team. We had fantastic talent, and I really enjoyed my year and a half in Amsterdam. I still have many friends there; it was very beautiful."
"Football is about winning, but also about how you win," Olsen once said in an Ajax documentary. "You don't become a champion with just beautiful football, especially not with many new players. I worked with an 'over-my-dead-body' mentality. No matter who the opponent was or what the weather was like: we simply had to win," he explains.
Olsen began his tenure at Ajax after a less successful season in which the Amsterdammers had finished fourth. "The most important thing for me was to convince the players who were already there that things would start clicking again, as they had a few years earlier when Ajax won the UEFA Champions League in 1995. But they also had to accept that it could take some time." Olsen’s start was fantastic. "It was unbelievable, we scored so much in the first three games." In the end, Ajax convincingly won the double in the 1997/1998 season.
Starting strong
"At Ajax, you always have to be at the top in the Netherlands, but I worked with players who had achieved great success under Van Gaal," Olsen continues about his first months. "Afterwards, things went a bit downhill at the club. Perhaps I brought a new stimulus that led to fresh success. We had a good team, with excellent new players combined with the core players who were still there."
With Farioli, Olsen now has a ‘successor.’ The Italian, the first foreign coach at Ajax since Olsen, almost equaled the Dane's record. Due to the 0-1 defeat against Panathinaikos, Olsen remains the last Ajax coach to begin with a series of five consecutive victories. "You need to have belief from the start. You have to convince people and get them behind you right away, both inside and outside the team. That often only happens with results. We did it with many goals early on, and that certainly helped," says the former coach.
Expectations
In European terms, the crucial two-legged tie with Jagiellonia Białystok is on the horizon. The prize: the group stage of the UEFA Europa League. "That is very important, especially for Ajax. I think the team should always aim to go far in Europe; that must be the goal. People expect that when they come to the Johan Cruijff ArenA. Ajax should, even with fewer resources, always aim to at least reach the quarterfinals, in my opinion."
Whether Olsen, who eventually left Amsterdam as coach at the end of 1998, will be present at the European matches this coming season is a definite possibility. "I need to come by again and visit my old friend Heini Otto. Maybe I'll even catch a match while I'm there." Finally, he directs a message to his 'successor': "I hope he has success, for sure."
