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Brede Hangeland Interview

billyiddo

billyiddo

Teddy Sheringham
Staff member
saw this posted on another forum, has been transcribed from a Norwegian football Podcast - good read and there's some insight in to a few of our ex players habits behind the scenes

Heia fotball is a norwegian podcast/radio show about football. As it was in Norwegian I'll do my best to translate.
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The Felix Magath cheese story
"I always try to see the good in people, but he was an awful human being." "He had penalizing extra workouts. Once after we lost a game we got back home to Fulham at 1 a.m. He then forced us to run laps around and around between 1am and 2am. It was absurd"

"I once got a dead leg, which is pretty painful. I went to the club doctor and he wanted to drain the blood with a hypodermic needle, which is the common way of doing it. However he also informed me that due to a new policy Magath had to approve all medical procedures."

Hangeland then went to Magath's office asking if he was allowed to do this. Magath answered with a calm "no, it's not okay".

Magath then told Hangeland to go to Tesco's to buy cream cheese. Hangeland was then supposed to put this on his thigh with some alcohol. It couldnt be gin or vodka, it had to be medicinal alcohol.

Most importantly however, Magath told him that while he was doing this "you have to call your mother." Hangeland at this point was sure it was a practical joke. Hangeland then asked "why do I have to call my mother?". Magath replied saying that if Hangeland called his mother with this mixture on his thigh he would get a biological reaction helped by motherly love.

End of the story, Hangeland was in bed with his wife that evening and opened the cream cheese. His wife promptly told him this wasn't going to happen, he didn't do it.

Every episode the guest on this show has to make a themed 11. Brede Hangeland chose the 11 laziest players he's played with.

Brede Hangelands all-time lazy 11, 3-4-3

KEEPER

Wayne Hennessey: He used to just lay down in the gym on one of those thick blue matts while we were working out and he just relaxed while the rest of us worked out. Increadibly uninterested in the gym.

DEFENCE

Chris Baird: Completely uninterested in the gym and cardio workouts. Whenever they were doing cardio or were in the gym hed go ask the coach "when can we go play football?"

Zdenek Grygera: Great guy, good friend. When he arrived in Fulham he went straight to the coach and said "I don't do weights", and he didn't. He was such a positive guy that it sort of ended up just being alright.

Erik "Panzer" Hagen: Great footballer and panzer center-back, he was a big, strong, guy but it must have come from his genes, certainly not from the gym. He was a wonderful man!

MIDFIELD

Wilf Zaha: Amazing physique and very athletic, huge potential. On some mondays he'd come over to me and say "I'm starting my program now!", he'd clearly decided to start during the week-end. We'd then go to the gym together and he'd do like 5 pushups, sigh, and leave. It felt like he had a new years resolution every monday. Would be increadible if he was serious.

Jimmy Bullard: Great player, but so increadibly weak. Never interested in going into the gym, at all. Clear cut player for this team.

Mousa Dembele: You know what he's going to do but you can't stop it. Maybe the best player I've played with, will be surprised if he doesn't end up at a club like Real Madrid. Struggles a bit with his physique but what he has is natural, never lifted any weights. Increadible balance. Only player, apart from "Panzer"-Hagen on the team that had the right to not work out.

Bryan Ruiz: Costa-rican who played great everywhere but for Fulham. Was never near the gym, don't think he even knew where it was. Always wore long sleeves and gloves, wouldn't be surprised if he showed up with a scarf and beanie during games, absolutely hated being even marginally uncomfortable. If it was cold or we were away to Stoke he'd never come along.

ATTACK

Bobby Zamora: A strong man, but hated the gym intensely. Whenever it was time for deadlifts he'd start feeling his hamstring etc. This happened every single time we went to the gym. Fantastic guy though, I forgive him for being a great player and guy. One of the hosts mentioned Zamora had a great leap, Hangeland replied "didn't like heading the ball though."

Dimitar Berbatov: I've never seen a man get so many massages in my life. I'm certain he spent more hours getting massaged than he trained. Whenever we were in the gym working out Berbatov was getting massages. I knew the guy who gave him massages and usually at the end of the season the players give the physios a gift, a trip, a car, money whatever. He'd massaged Berbatov for hundreds of hours this season and he got, nothing. Absolutely nothing. Host mentions Berbatov having a six-pack and they conclude that this was because he ate very healthily and basically starved his way into a six-pack.

Emanuel Adebayor: Only played with him for 6 months but a quick story. I played for Fulham and he played for spurs. We were attacking and I was marking Adebayor in the midfield, suddenly he says "ahhh, I'm hungry". I replied "what?". "I can't wait for the game to finish, I'm so hungry. Do you know a good restaurant in London Hangeland?". Later when he came to Palace I started to realized where this came from. When we had strength workouts he would sit in the gym with just a cup of coffee and a muffin. He was being paid by City, Tottenham and Palace at the same time, and he was sitting in the gym drinking coffee. Incredible natural talent, very lazy.

continued...
 
...

Meanest forwards in the premier league

"We have to go back to the old tank cf's. Kevin Davies was terrible to play against, Andy Carroll was not a very nice forward. The strongest was probably Jon Carew, he was probably the strongest man on a football pitch ever. The one who annoyed me the most was Drogba. He was 190+cm, 90kg+ and increadibly strong but he fell like a sack of potatoes sometimes, in duels you never knew if he'd be strong or fall over. He also had elbows, I remember we had a proper fight in some duels once and he elbowed me right in the face"

Roy Hodgson, quote machine

A listener asked if Hangeland brought his book of Hodgeson quotes. Turns out Hangeland kept a book of quotes from Hodgsons time in Viking. "This is completely correct, when he came to Viking we realized he was a quote machine. He was funny without knowing it, and I mean, he was obviously frustrated, I mean, here is a man of the world who for some reason is in Stavanger. During one of the first training sessions at viking he got frustrated at the poor level of our training and he said to us, but mostly to himself I think "I could be in Monaco smoking a cigar, but here I am, pushing myself for pocket money", our confidence levels fell as we realized how bad we were"

"Roy was mostly in control but he was a very bad loser, once he got so mad that at as Fulham was losing at half-time that he kicked a metal carrying bag, broke his toe and needed to be attended to by the club doctor"

The great escape with Fulham in 2008

I came to Fulham in January of that year, we had 17 points and a long way to go. With 5 games to go we were mathematically relegated at half-time vs Emirates Marketing Project but we managed to turn that around. In the last game of the season against Portsmouth we had to win. Then, of all people, Danny Murphy scored with 14 minutes to go, assist by Jimmy Bullard. Now, before the game our chairman, Mohammed Al Fayed came down to the dressing room and told all the players "if we lose today, I lose 50 million £". During the last 14 minutes their fullbacks pushed on and kept putting in crosses, we also had a goalkeeper at the time who couldn't collect crosses, Casey Keller so it was a very tense last 14 minutes..

After this story the radio-host lists all the players who were on that team at the time, Hangeland responds "It was a bang average team, it was truly the great escape. A random bunch of players who worked together to manage to stay up!. There were some cult heroes there like McBride and Jimmy bullard. Bullard was a legend and we need to talk more about him... Jimmy Bullard was a very good player but terribly hard to relate to/deal with. Hodgeson was our coach at the time and he was very strict and told everyone specifically what to do. Before a game he told Bullard exactly what he wanted him to do and it took a little while, Bullard responded with "what's this, the fudging Jimmy Bullard show?"


What happened when Pulis left with immediate effect?

There's been some sort of trial between Pulis and the club, but I don't know the details. For me it was special because he signed me 10 days before he quit, but it was even worse for Martin Kelly who joined from Liverpool 2 hours before Pulis left. He had just had time to shake hands with Pulis before he quit. There had been some sort of conflict between Pulis and the club about transfer budgets that made him leave

Pardew

Was Pardew sort of a playboy? "I guess. Everyones seen him dancing in the FA-cup final and not all the players were happy with that but he was a cool guy. He was more interested in attack than defense though for sure. After I told him my body was more or less done and that I was retiring he sent me across the country and wanted me to scout my own replacement. After scouting you have to write reports and then he decided if he wanted to go forward with this. Pardew told me I knew more about being a CB than most in the premier league. I ended up recommending Tomkins"

Dimitar Berbatov

How was Berbatov in training? "We used to play square, 4 v 2 as a warmup and he was never in the middle, he could do whatever he wanted. If he played 5-a-side where you don't have to run he'd be the worlds best player, he never ran though... A fantastic player though. He was a strange fellow and sort of kept to himself, didn't share much about himself and was usually on the massage table... I liked him well, if he'd only ran he'd have been a great signing.

Craig Bellamy

"During the handshakes before the game Bellamy took my hand, he was a head lower than me and he looked me straight in the eye and said "you fudging clown shoe". I was thinking what the hell, I've never even met you". Long story short, Hangeland clattered him a few times during the game.
 
billyiddo said:
...

Meanest forwards in the premier league

"We have to go back to the old tank cf's. Kevin Davies was terrible to play against, Andy Carroll was not a very nice forward. The strongest was probably Jon Carew, he was probably the strongest man on a football pitch ever. The one who annoyed me the most was Drogba. He was 190+cm, 90kg+ and increadibly strong but he fell like a sack of potatoes sometimes, in duels you never knew if he'd be strong or fall over. He also had elbows, I remember we had a proper fight in some duels once and he elbowed me right in the face"

Roy Hodgson, quote machine

A listener asked if Hangeland brought his book of Hodgeson quotes. Turns out Hangeland kept a book of quotes from Hodgsons time in Viking. "This is completely correct, when he came to Viking we realized he was a quote machine. He was funny without knowing it, and I mean, he was obviously frustrated, I mean, here is a man of the world who for some reason is in Stavanger. During one of the first training sessions at viking he got frustrated at the poor level of our training and he said to us, but mostly to himself I think "I could be in Monaco smoking a cigar, but here I am, pushing myself for pocket money", our confidence levels fell as we realized how bad we were"

"Roy was mostly in control but he was a very bad loser, once he got so mad that at as Fulham was losing at half-time that he kicked a metal carrying bag, broke his toe and needed to be attended to by the club doctor"

The great escape with Fulham in 2008

I came to Fulham in January of that year, we had 17 points and a long way to go. With 5 games to go we were mathematically relegated at half-time vs Emirates Marketing Project but we managed to turn that around. In the last game of the season against Portsmouth we had to win. Then, of all people, Danny Murphy scored with 14 minutes to go, assist by Jimmy Bullard. Now, before the game our chairman, Mohammed Al Fayed came down to the dressing room and told all the players "if we lose today, I lose 50 million £". During the last 14 minutes their fullbacks pushed on and kept putting in crosses, we also had a goalkeeper at the time who couldn't collect crosses, Casey Keller so it was a very tense last 14 minutes..

After this story the radio-host lists all the players who were on that team at the time, Hangeland responds "It was a bang average team, it was truly the great escape. A random bunch of players who worked together to manage to stay up!. There were some cult heroes there like McBride and Jimmy bullard. Bullard was a legend and we need to talk more about him... Jimmy Bullard was a very good player but terribly hard to relate to/deal with. Hodgeson was our coach at the time and he was very strict and told everyone specifically what to do. Before a game he told Bullard exactly what he wanted him to do and it took a little while, Bullard responded with "what's this, the fudging Jimmy Bullard show?"


What happened when Pulis left with immediate effect?

There's been some sort of trial between Pulis and the club, but I don't know the details. For me it was special because he signed me 10 days before he quit, but it was even worse for Martin Kelly who joined from Liverpool 2 hours before Pulis left. He had just had time to shake hands with Pulis before he quit. There had been some sort of conflict between Pulis and the club about transfer budgets that made him leave

Pardew

Was Pardew sort of a playboy? "I guess. Everyones seen him dancing in the FA-cup final and not all the players were happy with that but he was a cool guy. He was more interested in attack than defense though for sure. After I told him my body was more or less done and that I was retiring he sent me across the country and wanted me to scout my own replacement. After scouting you have to write reports and then he decided if he wanted to go forward with this. Pardew told me I knew more about being a CB than most in the premier league. I ended up recommending Tomkins"

Dimitar Berbatov

How was Berbatov in training? "We used to play square, 4 v 2 as a warmup and he was never in the middle, he could do whatever he wanted. If he played 5-a-side where you don't have to run he'd be the worlds best player, he never ran though... A fantastic player though. He was a strange fellow and sort of kept to himself, didn't share much about himself and was usually on the massage table... I liked him well, if he'd only ran he'd have been a great signing.

Craig Bellamy

"During the handshakes before the game Bellamy took my hand, he was a head lower than me and he looked me straight in the eye and said "you fudging clown shoe". I was thinking what the hell, I've never even met you". Long story short, Hangeland clattered him a few times during the game.
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This was getting a like anyway, but the last sentence sealed it.
 
sounds like Zaha would need to up his efforts in the gym if we continue through with our supposed interest too
 
LemonadeMoney said:
I did wonder if this was Ade trying to fudge with Hangeland though.
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I attended a Q & A with Ledley King last year. He said Bobby Zamora would be overly friendly during a game, ask him how his knee was, ask him how his family was, etc. Would distract him more than a player giving him standard abuse.
 
That is a great read... very funny and believable about lazy players that you always suspected were lazy. Must be the body language, eh Parklane?

Interesting that Zaha is another lazy player, I thought so. He has an amazing physique, but no drive and a lazy brain.
 
So a little cultural translation is required to get the best out of that ...

Thread on it in Reddit somewhere, but the basics of it was, his version of lazy is "didn't like going to gym" .. not lazy as in didn't train, some commented that Norwegian players are a bit gym obsessed, I'd leave better qualified folks to comment on that.
 
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