Kjetil Rekdal

Vålerenga

Rekdal has proven himself a successful coach, leading Vålerenga from relegation in 2001 and famously weeping as his team avoided relegation the following year and back into position as one of the dominating clubs in the Tippeligaen. In 2004, he led the team to second place, losing the first place on goal difference to Rosenborg, and in 2005, his team finally won the league for the first time in 21 years, ending Rosenborg's 13-year reign as champions of Norway. Along the way, he received legend status in the club, partly due to the fact that he refused an offer of a six-digit coaching salary in order to help the club financially.

Lierse

Rekdal resigned as coach at Vålerenga on 21 August 2006, following a string of poor results. He was appointed manager of his former club Lierse on 21 November 2006. When he arrived at the club, Lierse lay bottom of the table with only two points in fifteen matches. At the end of the season, they ended up with 26 points and avoided direct relegation. In the play-offs, Lierse only managed to win three of their six matches and were relegated to the Second Division after all.

1. FC Kaiserslautern

In May 2007, Rekdal signed on to manage Kaiserslautern in the German 2. Bundesliga. He left the club in early February of the following year, the club lying in sixteenth place.

Aalesund

He joined forces with Norwegian top-flight outfit Aalesund in 2008 after moving back to Norway. Joining the club…

Born in Vestnes Municipality, Rekdal started playing football for the local club Fiksdal/Rekdal in 1979. Later, as a 16-year-old, he started his professional career with the local top-flight club Molde FK, becoming the second-youngest player in the league. In 1988, he signed with the Bundesliga club Borussia Mönchengladbach and stayed with them for two years before moving to the Belgian Pro League side Lierse S.K. and remaining there until 1996, with the exception of the 1994 season, which he spent on loan helping his former club Molde FK gain promotion to Tippeligaen and win the domestic cup. In 1996, he signed for Ligue 1 club Rennes. The highlight of his playing career was a highly successful spell at Hertha BSC in Germany between 1997 and 2000. His final years as a player and then player/manager were spent in the Norwegian club Vålerenga, where he picked up another cup winner's medal in 2002 before retiring in 2004. In the summer of 2007, Rekdal officially rejoined his youth club Fiksdal/Rekdal.

Rekdal has 83 games for the Norway national team, after his debut against Italy in 1987, and played in two FIFA World Cups (1994 and 1998). He scored 17 goals for the national team, among those a long-range goal at Wembley against England in 1992, the only goal in the game as Norway beat Mexico in the 1994 World Cup, and a penalty in the 1998 World Cup against Brazil to win the game 2–1, prompting the commentator to say how "the man with the yellow boots has hurt those wearing the yellow shirts...Delight for Egil Olsen". The two World Cup goals make him the second highest-scoring Norwegian in World Cup history, with one goal more than Arne Brustad, Dan Eggen, Håvard Flo and Tore André Flo.

Born 6 November 1968 in Rekdal in Vestnes Municipality into a family of six, including three younger siblings, his younger brother Sindre also played professionally with Molde FK, helping them win the domestic cup in 1994. Among his interests and hobbies is freshwater fishing and card-games such as Poker, having competed in amateur tournaments internationally. Rekdal moved to Ottestad neighborhood in Hamar in 2013, with his wife and four children. During his time at Lierse, Rekdal had a clause in his contract that allowed him to keep up-to-date with Leeds United results at half-time intervals via BBC Radio. He is a fanatic supporter of the Yorkshire club. Rekdal is highly superstitious. To avoid bad luck, he never appears on matchday without his locally produced trademark Pear-flavoured soft drink. While coaching Aalesunds FK, he appeared in the home matches of tier-five club Fiksdal/Rekdal as a player, stating that he wished to contribute to the club with which he started his career.