After a crushing 5-0 defeat at Haugesund in May, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer decided to give his Molde players a little speech. ‘If there’s anything about you now lads, I would take all your money, your mortgage, and put it on us winning the league because we will. You’ll never get better odds than now.’
Solskjaer knew the words off by heart. He had memorised them 15 years earlier during his first season at Manchester United when Sir Alex Ferguson tried to lift his players after an equally demoralising 5-0 defeat to Newcastle and 6-3 upset at Southampton.
'I could remember it as clear as day,' said Solskjaer sheepishly as he admitted stealing Ferguson's rhetoric. 'And of course, United won the league easily.'
So have Molde, although the outcome has been less predictable for this small town on the west coast of Norway. Their club had never won the title since it was formed a century ago, until Solskjaer left Old Trafford and came home to take up his first senior managerial job in January.
He began preparing for the role long ago. At the age of 10, Solskjaer was coaching the other kids in the streets of nearby Kristiansund. Long before he became a United icon and scored arguably the most famous goal in the club's history, he was taking notes in training and learning from Ferguson, the players around him and even his own insecurities.
'That manager was always in me,' he said. 'There was a stage when I wrote what we did in every single training session and then there was a period in my career when I wrote a mental diary as well. It was quite interesting because I struggled with low confidence at times and I used to write about how I reacted mentally to Roy Keane giving me a b******ing, for example, or missing a chance. I was more alert to how I was thinking.
'Towards the end, it was a diary on what the manager was saying and the tactical meetings we had. Different kinds of notes. I still go back to them now but most of it's in my head.'
Solskjaer has based all the changes at Molde on what he experienced during 15 years at United. How the players eat, how they dress. Creating an environment that breeds champions.
'I look at that as the perfect way of running a club.' he said. 'In our little world, with different facilities and resources, you have to make it into a mini Manchester United. How the gaffer runs it is a template for everyone. If it's good enough for United, it's definitely good enough for Molde.'
He refers to Ferguson as the 'gaffer' at all times. On the phone it's simply 'boss'. The respect is clear, but he knows he has to be his own man.
'I've got to do it my way,' said Solskjaer, who has already attracted interest from Portsmouth. 'I can't compromise and be someone else. When I was a player I could never be Giggs, Scholes, Beckham, Cantona or Keane. But I could still take bits from David's mentality or Eric's ability to improve myself.
'It's the same with the gaffer. He's got a few traits that suit me but others that don't. I try to make that into Ole Gunnar Solskjaer the manager. I don't need it for the money, the recognition or the success, but I really enjoy it.'
So to the million dollar question. Could Solskjaer, once described by Ferguson as United's 'man of destiny', one day be destined to move from Molde to Old Trafford, as he did for £1.5million in 1996, and take over as manager?
'Every manager dreams of managing Manchester United,' he said. 'It was said that Bryan Robson would be the next one and there have been so many great players at United linked to the job. But don't worry, the gaffer will keep going.
'If I got that offer I would say yes without thinking but it's not in my wildest dreams or plans at all. I don't think anyone would have talked about me managing United a year ago, that's for sure. I don't think one year at Molde gives me the right to say I can manage United one day, but everyone can dream. That dream is maybe too big for me at the moment, but if that happens then I will have done a lot of things right along the way.'
Solskjaer stands impassively watching training. His hands are stuffed into the pockets of his black anorak and you can see his breath rising into the autumn air. His hair is greying slightly but the man they dubbed the Baby-Faced Assassin is still fresh-faced at 38.
Behind him, the icy Fannefjord slides past the Romsdal mountains and out towards the North Sea. Normally there is snow on the ground at this time of year but the Akerhallen indoor training pitch is being prepared for a party for 3,000 fans to celebrate Molde's success.
The players are able to train outside on the astroturf at Årøli while Mark Dempsey and Richard Hartis shout instructions. The former United coaches have been instrumental in helping Solskjaer deliver the title to a town with a population of just 26,000 on a total budget of little more than £10m. Dempsey's Mancunian tones, interrupted by the odd word of Norwegian, fill the air but there is no doubt who is the boss.
'I'm not always as quietly spoken as I am to you now,' said Solskjaer, who has had his squad taking ice baths after games by sitting on the rocks in the fjord behind the club's Aker Stadion. He laughs when he recalls the day passengers on a passing ferry called the police because they thought one of the players was drowning.
Some questioned whether Solskjaer's success as United's reserve team manager would rub off on his old club in Norway, but he never doubted his own ability - even after an opening 3-0 defeat by Sarpsborg and that hammering at Haugesund.
'Never,' he insisted. 'It's that United mentality that I've learned through the gaffer. He's had struggles but you believe in what you're doing. I know for a fact people doubted me. They said to me and my friends that it wasn't going to work and that's one of the things that motivates me. When the manager put me on the bench it motivated me to say, "I'll show you". When people doubt me, I love it.'
Solskjaer accepts his 'supersub' tag now. He does not agree that he was better as an impact player off the bench than as a starter at United, but concedes that his tactical insight gave him an edge over other subs.
'Yes I do think I had an advantage of watching the game and thinking tactically, but the big thing was that I was mentally ready to come on. When I decided to stay at United I put my career in the gaffer's hands: do whatever you want with me, I'm always going to be ready. Other players don't really have that in them.'
It is an attitude that should make his former United team-mate Carlos Tevez blush. 'Some players are too selfish and think, "if he's not starting me I can't be bothered",' he said.
'I never had that sulk. I always felt privileged to have the career I had, just sitting behind the manager watching the game.'
The events of May 26, 1999, are written in United folklore. It was the night Solskjaer emerged off the bench against Bayern Munich to snatch a late winner and deliver Ferguson's first Champions League crown.
For the man himself, however, there were more precious goals among the 126 he scored in 366 games for United. In particular, the two against Newcastle at Old Trafford in October 2006 after coming back from three years plagued by the knee trouble that was to force his retirement 10 months later.
'I was walking off the pitch and there was my son Noah with his fists clenched,' recalled Solskjaer. 'He was six and he would remember daddy scoring at Old Trafford. That was one of my biggest things to drive me on because he was only three when I got injured.
'My dad used to be a greco-roman wrestler and he was Norwegian champion six years on the bounce from 1966 to 1971. But I never saw him wrestle. I've only read the clippings. My motivation was that Noah wouldn't just read about me, he would remember me.'
On Saturday evening, fireworks will light up the magnificent alpine scene behind Molde's 11,000-capacity home that has been sold out for three weeks.
Eight points clear with two games to go, Solskjaer's players will lift the title irrespective of their result against Sarpsborg. It will be quite a party for the town that supplies 20 per cent of the UK's gas supply and long overdue reward for the club's billionaire owner Kjell Inge Roekke.
'The players have won the league for the first time in a hundred years and when I see my skipper lifting the trophy it will be amazing,' said Solskjaer. 'I used to play with him here at Molde. He's always been at this club and he's never won the league so, for me, that's fulfilment.'
But what is really occupying Solskajer's thoughts when he makes the daily two-and-a-half hour round trip 'up and over that mountain' - the Furseth Fiellet that separates Molde and Kristiansund, where Ole has settled back with his wife Silje and their three children - is what comes next. How to do it all again. It's a classic Ferguson trait.
'I'm thinking about next year,' said Solskjaer. 'Now we've won the league I'll be looking for the response from the players. You can't switch off when you've won things. That should motivate you for next season.
'I know for a fact that one or two of these players won't be as good next year. They think they're Big-time Charlies. So it'll be thanks and goodbye.'
