Baroness Sue Campbell has described Hege Riise’s Olympic experience as being critical to why the Norwegian was hired to lead Team GB at the Tokyo Games this summer.
Riise, who joined England as an assistant coach in January before taking charge of England’s February camp following the departure of Phil Neville, won Olympic gold in 2000 and was an assistant coach to the gold medal-winning USA women’s team at London 2012.
“All of the research shows us that people that haven’t been to an Olympics before really struggle with their first Olympics, and that includes coaches,” said Campbell, the Football Association’s head of women’s football. “It is a unique and very different experience to a World Cup, for example. It’s essentially 26 World Cups of different sports happening simultaneously. The village itself is a different environment. And I think the fact that Hege has been there, both as a player and the coach, will really help her to prepare the team the very best she can.”
How Riise and Rhian Wilkinson – who also joined as a temporary assistant coach in January and will assist Riise in Tokyo – managed England at the end of February was important, with the leadership group of England players also asked for their input.
“It was really important, for me, to see the February camp and to look at how Hege and Rhian worked with the players and that was excellent,” Campbell said. “For somebody coming in with the amount of time that she had it was really both an excellent demonstration of how you come in and set a tone, a set of values and a way of working. So the evidence was in front of us, let alone her amazing record as a coach.”
There will be two Team GB camps before the Olympics – one in June and one in July at Loughborough, with a friendly also set to be organised during that timeframe.
Riise, who won Euro 1993 and the 1995 World Cup as a player with Norway, will reduce the list of players on whom she and her staff focus to 35 next week, before an 18-player squad being announced in May. The 51-year-old has insisted that while the majority of the squad will be English, every eligible player will be given a fair shot. “I think that’s the benefit I have coming from outside,” she said. “I can pick the players that I believe can go into the Olympics and do some good things there.”
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Riise also cautioned that she will not be able to think about the long-term development of England players when it comes to picking her 18 for Team GB.
“Since the squad will be so small, it will be challenging. It will be [about the] here and now, if we can win the gold medal, and from there we’ll pick the players that we think are right for this tournament. I think this is an adventure, but we travel to win, and we need to prepare for that.”
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