Nils Johan Semb

Nils Johan Semb (born February 24, 1959 in Horten ) is a former Norwegian football player who worked as a football coach and official after his career ended . He gained national fame as the coach of the Norwegian national team , with which he qualified for a European championship final tournament for the first time in its history .

Career

Semb played his entire playing career at FK Ørn-Horten in his hometown. As a youth player, he was appointed to the Norwegian youth national teams several times. After he made his debut in 1976 for the club in the second division 2. division in the men's team, he won the Norwegian National Cup the following year with the youth team of the club. Until 1985 he ran for the club, which commuted between second and third Norwegian league. The offensive player scored 62 goals in 230 games. At the same time, he studied sports science and trained as a teacher.

After the end of his active career, Semb began a coaching career. First he worked at his home club FK Ørn-Horten in the third division, before he took over the coaching post in 1988 at the second division Eik-Tønsberg . In 1990 he moved to the Norwegian Football Association and was in charge of the Norwegian U-21 national team as Egil Olsen's assistant . After Olsen was promoted to coach of the senior national team, he worked in the same position under Benny Lennartsson . In 1992 he moved up as his successor to the head coach of the junior team. Thanks to his close cooperation with Olsen, a number of talents from the U-21 team moved up into the A-national team, which qualified for the 1994 and 1998 World Championships. Therefore, in 1998, after Olsen's departure, he took over his post as national coach.

Semb tried at the beginning of his activity as national coach to establish a more offensive style of play. After a defeat against Latvia and a draw against Albania , he returned to the defensive-oriented game system of his predecessor and qualified for the European Championship 2000 with the national selection . The team around players like Ole Gunnar Solskjær , John Carew , André Bergdølmo and Erik Mykland managed a 1-0 win over Spain after a goal by Steffen Iversen . After a 0-1 defeat against Yugoslavia , however, the team was eliminated from the tournament by a final 0-0 draw due to the poorer direct comparison against the Yugoslav selection. The subsequent qualification for the 2002 World Cup was mixed and with only ten points, Semb missed participation in the final tournament with the national team as fourth in qualification group 5 behind Poland , Ukraine and Belarus . The qualifying round for the 2004 European Championship was a bit more successful as the team qualified for the play-off games behind group winners Denmark . After a 1: 2 away defeat at the beginning, Semb failed with the selection after a 0: 3 home defeat in the second leg.

The association then released Semb from his duties at the end of 2003 and replaced him with Åge Hareide . From then on, Semb worked in the youth sector of the association and appeared at the same time as an expert and commentator on Norwegian television, first on Canal + and later on TV2. In the course of time he was presented with several offers to become active as a coach in the Tippeligaen . However, he refused.

After long negotiations, Semb took over the post of "Toppfotballsjef" at the Norwegian Association in November 2009 as the successor to Per-Mathias Høgmo .

Web links

• Player profile at weltfussball.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ snl.no: "Nils Johan Semb" (accessed on November 24, 2009)
2. ↑ ^{a b c} sportontoret.no: "Nils Johan Semb"  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed November 24, 2009)  
3. ↑ tb.no: "Blir toppfotballsjef" (accessed on November 24, 2009)