Steinar Nilsen (born 1 May 1972) is a Norwegian football

coach Coach may refer to: Guidance/instruction * Coach (sport), a director of Athletes' training and activities * Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process ** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers Transportation * Coac ...

who has been in charge of

Tromsø Tromsø is a List of towns and cities in Norway, city in Tromsø Municipality in Troms county, Norway. The city is the administrative centre of the municipality as well as the administrative centre of Troms county. The city is located on the is ...

and Brann in the

Norwegian Premier League Eliteserien () is a professional association football league in Norway and the highest level of the Norwegian football league system. Contested by 16 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the Norwegian First Division ...

. As a player, he played as a

central defender In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield player whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Defenders fall into four main categories: centre-backs, full-backs, sweepers ...

at Tromsø and also had a notable stay in Italy's

Serie A The Serie A (), officially known as Serie A Enilive in Italy and Serie A Made in Italy abroad for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Italy and the highest tier of the Italian football league system. Establish ...

and

Serie B The Serie B (), officially known as Serie BKT for sponsorship reasons, is the second-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie A. It has been operating for over ninety years since the 1929–30 season. It had b ...

, before retiring in 2004. He won two caps for Norway. He is the brother of

Roger Nilsen Roger Nilsen (born 8 August 1969) is a Norwegian association football, football coach and former player. A defender (association football), defender, he played for the Norwegian clubs Tromsø IL, Tromsø, Viking FK, Viking, Molde FK, Molde and B ...

Player career

Nilsen played for

between 1989 and 1997, before he was sold to

A.C. Milan (), commonly referred to as Milan or AC Milan () mainly outside of Italy, is an Italian professional Football club (association football), football club based in Milan, Lombardy. Founded in 1899, the club competes in the Serie A, the top tie ...

. Nilsen then moved on to

S.S.C. Napoli Società Sportiva Calcio Napoli (), commonly known as SSC Napoli or simply Napoli, is an Italian professional football club based in Naples, Campania that currently competes in the Serie A, the highest league of Italian football. Napoli are am ...

, before returning to Tromsø in 2003.

Coaching career

Tromsø

After

Per Mathias Høgmo Per or PER may refer to: Places * Peru (IOC country code) * Pér, a village in Hungary * Perthshire (Chapman code), historic county in Scotland Science and technology * Physics education research * Packed Encoding Rules, in computing, an ASN.1 wi ...

resigned his job as head coach of Tromsø in 2005, Nilsen became assistant coach to

Otto Ulseth Otto Ulseth (born 29 July 1957) is a Norwegian football coach and journalist. Ulseth has worked as sports journalist in ''Adresseavisen'', ''Dagbladet'', and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. As a football coach he has worked as manager of Tr ...

, Høgmo's former assistant. A horrible start to Tromsø's season saw Ulseth fired and Nilsen promoted to head coach. This move was criticised by many Norwegian sports commentators, with some, especially

Ivar Hoff Ivar (Old Norse ''Ívarr'') is a Scandinavian masculine given name. Another variant of the name is Iver, which is more common in Norway. The Old Norse name has several possible etymologies. In North Germanic phonology, several of the elements c ...

, claiming it would assuredly mean Tromsø would be relegated. However, Nilsen turned Tromsø poor form around, and after a good run in the autumn-part of the season, the team avoided relegation. Nilsen also led Tromsø to a historic

UEFA Cup The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

victory over

Galatasaray Galatasaray Spor Kulübü (, ''Galatasaray Sports Club''), more commonly referred to as simply Galatasaray and familiarly as Cimbom, is a Turkish sports club based on the European side of the city of Istanbul including basketball, wheelchair ...

, making Tromsø the first Norwegian team (together with

Viking Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9� ...

) to reach the UEFA Cup's group stage. At the end of the 2005-campaign, Nilsen stepped down from his position as head coach of Tromsø, despite urges from many fans for him to stay longer. In 2006, following another string of bad results, Tromsø's head coach

Ivar Morten Normark Ivar Morten Normark (born 27 May 1963) is a Norwegian football coach and former player. His most recent head coaching job was at FK Mjølner in the 2. divisjon. Normark resigned from this position at the end of the 2013 season. Normark led Aal ...

was fired and Nilsen once more stepped in as a replacement for the remainder of the season, in hopes that he could save Tromsø from relegation. Nilsen's effect was not as noticeable on the team this time, however, and with four matches left of the season Tromsø I.L. looked like they would almost certainly be relegated. However, a string of three consecutive wins at the end of season put Tromsø in 10th place, meaning Nilsen had once more saved Tromsø from relegation. In 2007, his first full season as Tromsø-manager, Nilsen led Tromsø to a comfortable 6th-place finish, just a few points shy of European qualification.

SK Brann

In November 2008 Nilsen signed a three-year contract with Brann, to become the successor of

Mons Ivar Mjelde Mons Ivar Mjelde (born 17 November 1967) is a Norwegian football coach and former player who works as head coach for the Norwegian club Øygarden. He is notable for having led Brann to the Norwegian top division championship in 2007, breaking ...

. Under his command, Brann finished 5th in the

2009 Tippeligaen The 2009 Tippeligaen was the 65th completed season of top division football in Norway. The competition began on 15 March and end on 1 November. Stabæk were the defending champions. Odd Grenland, Sandefjord and Start entered as the three promot ...

, a step up from an 8th place under Mjelde in 2008. On 21 May 2010 Nilsen's spell as head coach for Brann ended. He was relieved of his contract after a poor start to the season, including an early exit from the

Norwegian Cup The Norwegian Football Cup () is the main knockout cup competition in Norwegian football. It is run by the Football Association of Norway and has been contested since 1902, making it the oldest football tournament in the country. The tournament ...

Pundit

Recently, Nilsen has worked as a

pundit A pundit is a person who offers opinion in an authoritative manner on a particular subject area (typically politics, the social sciences, technology or sport), usually through the mass media. The term pundit describes both women and men, altho ...

at the Norwegian broadcaster

MAX Max or MAX may refer to: Animals * Max (American dog) (1983–2013), at one time purported to be the world's oldest living dog * Max (British dog), the first pet dog to win the PDSA Order of Merit (animal equivalent of the OBE) * Max (gorilla) ...

. In August 2012, ''

Dagbladet () is one of Norway's largest newspapers and is published in the Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid format. It has 1,400,000 daily readers on mobile, web and paper. Traditionally it was considered the main liberal newspaper of Norway, with a ...

'' named Nilsen a candidate for succeeding

Per-Mathias Høgmo Per-Mathias Høgmo (born 1 December 1959) is a Norway, Norwegian football manager and former player. who is the head coach of Eliteserien club Molde FK, Molde. He has previously been head coach of Norway women's national football team and the Tipp ...

at Tromsø after the 2012 season.

Tromsø

On 16 September 2013 he was signed as Agnar Christensen's assistant coach at Tromsø, but on 1 October he was promoted to head coach when Christensen was sacked, with Nilsen's old teammate

Sigurd Rushfeldt Sigurd Rushfeldt (born 11 December 1972) is a Norwegian football coach and former player who works as an assistant coach for Tromsø. During his playing career, he played for Tromsø, Birmingham City, Rosenborg, Racing de Santander, and Austria ...

becoming the new assistant coach. In December 2013, Tromsø announced that Nilsen had signed a three-year contract as head coach of the club, with a clear ambition of promotion back to Tippeligaen after the 2014 season. And he did, but he lost his job again on 18 August 2015 for reasons undisclosed by the management.Mads Wedervang,
– Dette kommer som lyn og torden fra klar himmel
' fra nyhetskanalen TV2.no den 18. august 2015.

References

External links

*
Nilsen profile
at www.til.no
Nilsen profile
at Norwegian FA {{DEFAULTSORT:Nilsen, Steinar 1972 births Living people Footballers from Tromsø Norwegian men's footballers Norway men's under-21 international footballers Norway men's international footballers Tromsø IL players AC Milan players SSC Napoli players Eliteserien players Serie A players Serie B players Norwegian expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in Italy Norwegian expatriate sportspeople in Italy Norwegian football managers Eliteserien managers Tromsø IL managers SK Brann managers Sandnes Ulf managers Men's association football defenders