“When we recruit players, we say something bold.” The morning’s training session at Lyse Arena has finished and, over lunch, Morten Jensen is explaining how he and Bjarte Lunde Aarsheim have propelled Viking Stavanger from mediocrity to an implausible place among Europe’s elite. “We always tell them: ‘If you come to Viking and play for us, we’re going to be the best coaches you ever had.’”
It is a story more than a decade in the making for Jensen and Aarsheim, who were appointed joint head coaches in November 2020. On Tuesday they will oversee the club’s first home Champions League game, against Bayern Munich, the latest step in a journey that has brought shared success in every sense.
