Solskjaer Ole Gunnar

Ole Gunnar Solskjær is a Norwegian former player. As a player, he spent most of his career playing as a forward for Manchester United. Before his arrival in England, Solskjær played for Norwegian clubs Clausenengen and Molde. He joined Manchester United in 1996 for a transfer fee of £1.5 million. Nicknamed “The Baby-faced Assassin”, he played 366 times for United, and scored 126 goals during a successful period for the club. He was regarded as a “super sub” for his trait of coming off the substitute bench to score late goals. Solskjær’s defining moment in football came in injury time of the 1999 UEFA Champions League Final, where he scored the winning last-minute goal against Bayern Munich, completing a remarkable comeback and winning The Treble for United. Before the century was up, a biography was written on him. In 2007, Solskjær announced his retirement from football after failing to recover from a serious knee injury. However, he remained at Manchester United in a coaching role as well as in an ambassadorial capacity.

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Solskjær joined Manchester United on 29 July 1996, and was something of a surprise acquisition as he was almost unknown outside his homeland and at the time United were still in the hunt for Blackburn Rovers and England striker Alan Shearer, who then joined Newcastle United for a world record £15 million. As the only striker to arrive at Old Trafford that year, it was widely expected that his first season would be spent as a backup to Eric Cantona and Andy Cole with only occasional first team opportunities. But within weeks of his arrival it was clear that he would be a key part of the first team sooner than had been anticipated, and would also prove himself to be one of the biggest Premier League bargains of the season. He was issued with the number 20 shirt, a squad number he would retain for the rest of his Manchester United career. He scored six minutes into his debut as a substitute against Blackburn Rovers. Solskjær scored 18 Premier League goals for United in his first season, helping United win the title in the last weeks of the season. The British media nicknamed him the “Baby-faced Assassin” because of his youthful looks and his deadly finishing. He will perhaps be best remembered as a “super-sub”, having earned wide acclaim for a habit of coming into matches late on as a substitute and scoring goals. Alex Ferguson remarked that Solskjær has a knack of sitting on the bench and studying the game without taking his eye off the action. Reflecting on this aspect of his career years later, Solskjær said: “I had to think about myself, how can I do the most damage for the opposition if I come on? I sat there and I studied football games but I didn’t exactly analyse their strikers. Instead I would pay attention to what the defenders and full-backs were doing wrong.”  One of his most impressive feats was coming off the bench to score four goals in the last 12 minutes of United’s 8–1 win over Nottingham Forest during their treble-winning 1998–99 season. He scored another four goals in a match a season later against Everton in a 5–1 victory.  Solskjær stayed at Old Trafford even though other clubs showed interest in the player in 1998. He refused an offer from Tottenham Hotspur, after Manchester United had accepted a bid for him. The Norwegian went on to score the stoppage time winning goal against Bayern Munich in the 1999 UEFA Champions League Final, helping the team secure the Treble and cementing his own place in the United folklore. Solskjær made his international debut in a friendly match against Jamaica on 26 November 1995, just a few months before he joined Manchester United. The game finished in a 1–1 draw with Solskjær scoring the only goal for Norway. He continued his great goal scoring start by scoring three goals in his first competitive appearances for the national team during the 1998 World Cup qualifying campaign. Solskjær played in both the 1998 FIFA World Cup and UEFA Euro 2000 for Norway. He formed a feared partnership with Tore André Flo which was seen as one of the best striking partnerships in Norway’s history. Following his lengthy layout to injuries Solskjær made his full game comeback on 2 September 2006, when he scored the first and last goals in a 4–1 win against Hungary in a Euro 2008 qualifying match. They would be his last goals for the national team taking his tally up to 23 goals.In February 2007, he made what proved to be his final appearance for Norway against Croatia, finishing with a record of 67 appearances.