After the club’s Youth Team won the inaugural Portugal Youth League AND the Portugal Youth Team Cup in the same season, Newcastle U FC Manager Rolf Bergström was interviewed by The Athlete’s Georgia Caulkina to discuss the team’s continued run of success, and the rejected takeover from a Middle Eastern-based consortium.

Newcastle U FC Press Office. 3 August, 2020
2 The Quayside, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1, UK

GC: So Rolf, what a season! Your Youth Team won the Portugal Youth Team Cup for an incredible 4th time, and you also won the inaugural Youth Team League competition. Presumably you must be delighted that your U23 squad continues to be so successful?

RB: Yes, it has been a tremendous week and I have to say, somewhat of a surprise. Our squad https://www.virtualmanager.com/squads/1232308 is a lot weaker than it was just a few seasons ago as we have had 3 players recently turn 24 and been promoted to our senior squad. I thought we’d be hard up against it then to add to the three cup wins and to try and do well in this new U23 league, so to win both… I share the fans' delight, it wasn’t really expected.

GC: What main reasons do you put last season’s successes down to?

RB: We have a great scouting team and some excellent youth team coaches here, and some very talented young players. On the coaching side, I’d like to give credit to Jawad Yanus https://www.virtualmanager.com/employees/10203993 who has worked tirelessly to help our players like the young Mexican lad Renau Magallanes https://www.virtualmanager.com/players/13792949-renau-magallanes to really push on and be a commanding presence in our midfield. In last season’s successful campaign Reni managed 5 crucial assists. I need to also give a lot of credit though to our Welsh goalie Amar Hatfield https://www.virtualmanager.com/players/13952277-amhar-hatfield/history who had 5 man of the match performances, but the real star of last year was The Viking (as we call him), Amund Arge https://www.virtualmanager.com/players/13800977-amund-arge what a talent that boy is, 12 assists, 9 man of the match performances and 23 goals! Talents like his are rare indeed and I expect great things from the lad.

GC: There certainly has been a lot of interest in Amund, do you think the club will be looking to take advantage of that by selling him?

RB: No. I have spoken to Dave ('two chins' Maguire), and we are both agreed that what we want is to build a great team here for our fans, and with talents like the Viking and Sakao https://www.virtualmanager.com/players/13830065-ryou-sakao/history (ed: 25 goals last season), that means not selling our better players.

GC: Rolf, you have 2 of your best youth players approaching 24 which will obviously weaken the chance for your U23’s continued run of success. Do you think we will see more trophies anytime soon?

RB: It won’t be easy, that’s for sure. Last week was a great surprise for the same reason, having lost Istvan https://www.virtualmanager.com/players/13693996-istvan-berzevicky
and Nicky https://www.virtualmanager.com/players/13700070-nikolinka-iglinskiy to the senior squad, and honestly I am genuinely surprized that we were able to go on and win leagues and trophies without them, so who knows! We will plan though for when we lose Niculau https://www.virtualmanager.com/players/13740518-niculau-martin-hanc this season…I am thinking of playing our Canadian defender Geoff Giroux https://www.virtualmanager.com/players/14021917-geoffrey-giroux as an advanced wingback, but we will see what happens in training. I think it is important to have 3 genuine midfielders on the park, so we will need to think hard about what to do when Nic leaves.

GC: Finally Rolf, have you anything to say about the collapse of the rumoured Middle Eastern takeover of the club?

RB: I need to be careful what I say Georgia, but thank you for your interest and support with this. Yes, it was all very strange indeed. Of course we were looking forward to the investment in the city, the region, the club and the squad, and it seems puzzling that seemingly a cartel of our rival clubs have blocked the move purely to protect their own self-interest when the same country has invested so heavily in other football clubs in Europe, and in companies like Disney and Uber, with seemingly nobody that bothered about it, but investing in our team seems problematic for some reason.….. Such things should not be possible under anti-trust legislation, so I support the public inquiry into why the deal did not receive League approval.

GC: Thank you Rolf and good luck this season coming.
RB: Thank you.

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