Ole Olsen coached Solskjaer both at Clausenengen and Molde. He is now retired.
I met him for the first time when he was nine or 10 years old, at a football school. He caught the eye immediately. He was good with both feet; his technique was magnificent. It looked like he slept with the ball in his bed.
But he was very interested in the tactics too. That is very unusual for a boy of 10 – always asking questions: ‘Why that? Why that? Why that?’
He scored a lot of goals every year but he was much smaller than the others and was hammered a bit. We trained a bit his strength and when he came over that, he was pointing only one way.
I trained him until he was 12, and then from 17 to 21 when he was at Molde. Then he went to Manchester United.
He was the best player I had but he was also a very good comrade with the other boys. He was the leader of the gang because of his ability and everyone looked up to him, but he didn’t let that go to his head, never. He was very special as a footballer and as a person too.
I’ve been in football 50 years and I’ve never seen anything like him, never. He was one in a million.
You can see it now in how he handles the media, and all the big stars – always with a smile, a clap on the shoulder. That is his strength. His feet are planted on the ground. He never takes off.
I’m not surprised by what he has achieved. He always had the ability and I’m very proud of him. The way he is on the pitch and especially off the pitch he is a special guy. That’s what you see at Manchester United now.
It comes from family. That’s why he is like that. He is the same with everybody, the higher people and the lower people. A smile costs nothing he says, and that is true.
He has already done something with the atmosphere at United, somehow bringing it back to the 1990s. He learned very much from Sir Alex Ferguson, the way he handled it. He is doing much the same now as when he came back to Molde from Cardiff – he implanted United’s style and they won the championship.
Sir Alex is like a mentor for Ole Gunnar. He still calls him the boss and always talks very highly of him. It’s a long way to go, back to those days, but if anyone can take them there, he can.