‘I fell in love with the team’: Even Pellerud on winning the Women’s Euros and World Cup

Even Pellerud is one of the few managers to have both the European Championship and the World Cup. He also coached in a further two European finals and won an Olympic bronze medal. Not bad. As the 68-year-old reflects on his career from his home in Norway, he says he was “lucky” – not in the sense that he didn’t work hard, but that he is privileged to have enjoyed so much success, especially when he considers just how little he knew about the women’s game when he was approached by the Norwegian football federation in the late 1980s.

Pellerud ended his playing career in 1986 while at Kongsvinger, where he was immediately installed as their manager. His coaching career took a new path three years later. “It was strange really,” he chuckles. “I was asked to meet the federation. My name had started to grow a little bit, but I was kind of expecting it to be maybe one of the men’s youth teams.

“In the meeting, they offered me the job of the women’s team and that was a big shock for me. I hadn’t seen one women’s game in my life, not even on TV. They seemed to think I was the man for the job. I was ready to move on, so I was motivated. I wanted to grow something. That’s what really triggered me to do it. All I asked is that I have a contract for only two years, because I didn’t know how it would go.”

Two years would become seven. It was an unprecedented period of success for Norway. They reached the final of the inaugural Women’s World Cup in 1991, won the Women’s Euros in 1993 and followed that up by winning the grandest prize of in 1995, as well as securing a bronze medal at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996.

“I fell in love with the team,” he says. “We had a very strong team, a lot of success. I had a lot of fun. It was a great