Ebbe Skovdahl

Football manager infobox
playername = Ebbe Skovdahl


fullname = Ebbe Skovdahl Hansen
nickname = Ebberdeen
dateofbirth = birth date and age|1945|7|5
cityofbirth = Copenhagen
countryofbirth = Denmark
currentclub = none
position = Manager
years = 195?-1971 1971-1977
clubs = Vanløse IF Brøndby IF
caps(goals) = 130 {?) 89 (?)
manageryears = 1977-1977
1978-1980
1980-1981
1982-1985
1986-1987
1987-1988
1988-1989
1990-1991
1992-1999
1999-2003
2003-2005
managerclubs = Brøndby IF (3rd team)
Hvalsø IF
Glostrup IC
Brønshøj BK
Brøndby IF
SL Benfica
Brøndby IF
Vejle Boldklub
Brøndby IF
Aberdeen F.C.
BK Frem

Ebbe Skovdahl Hansen (born 5 July 1945) is a retired Danish football (soccer) manager. He most prominently was a successful manager at Brøndby IF, for whom he had also played in his active years. He helped turn the side into the most dominant Danish team in the 1990s, and he also managed the club in several European campaigns with regular successful UEFA Cup runs, and a UEFA Champions League qualification. He has won numerous Danish Superliga and Danish Cup titles.

Ebbe Skovdahl is brother-in-law of former Denmark national football team and Brøndby IF player Finn Laudrup, and thus the uncle of former Danish national team and Brøndby IF players Michael Laudrup and Brian Laudrup.

Biography

Skovdahl started playing as a child for Vanløse IF. He played 130 amateur games for the club"60 år i dag: Han samler på pokaler", "Politiken article", July 5, 2005] before he moved to Brøndby IF in the Danish 3rd Division in 1971. Following 89 amateur matches, many of them as team captain, he went on to become Brøndby's third team coach in 1977. He coached a few minor Danish teams Hvalsø IF and Glostrup IC before he secured promotion for Brønshøj BK to the Danish 1st Division in 1982, the then best league of football in Denmark. In 1986 he moved back to coach Brøndby, who had just won the Danish football championship in 1985.

Championship coach

Skovdahl went on to coach Brøndby towards its second Danish championship in 1987 and he also guided the club to the quarterfinals of the international European Cup 1986-87 tournament. Following two years at Brøndby, Skovdahl moved to Portugal before the conclusion of the Danish season to coach the defending Portuguese Liga champions SL Benfica. Birger Peitersen went on to finish his job at Brøndby and secured the 1987 Danish championship. The job at Benfica was too much for the internationally inexperienced Skovdahl, and he lasted half a year in the club. He returned to coach Brøndby in 1988 where he won his first Danish championship as well as the Danish Cup trophy, before Skovdahl had a short interlude at Vejle BK in the 1990 and 1991 seasons. Following the near-bankruptcy of Brøndby IF in 1992, Skovdahl returned to the club once more.

In his first year at Brøndby, he coached a 5-3-2 system, and re-schooled former attacking players Jes Høgh and Ole Bjur to more defensive position, where they blossomed. Though Brøndby did not win the Danish championship in his first year, Skovdahl was named 1992-93 "Danish Manager of the Year", for rebuilding the Brøndby team by re-schooling players to their best abilities. [Sten Henriksen, "Skovdahls år", "Politiken", 19 June, 1993] He went on to install a 4-4-2 system with hardworking players, whose constant pressure on the opponent, combined with the necessary technical and tactical skills, went on to dominate the Danish championship for half a decade. After a few seasons of stable play and secondary finishes in the domestic league, the big turn-around for the club came in the UEFA Cup 1995-96 when Liverpool FC was eliminated, and including that season, Brøndby won three Danish championships in a row. The success of the team under Skovdahl concluded in qualification for the UEFA Champions League 1998-99 tournament, as the first Danish team. In all, Skovdahl won four Danish championships and three Danish Cups and guided Brøndby to a number of individual results in the European competitions.

cottish adventure

In 1999 he moved to become a popular manager of Scottish side Aberdeen F.C. in the top-flight Scottish Premier League (SPL) division. Aberdeen had been one of the most successful sides in Scotland in the eighties and early nineties, but the club started to decline from 1995. By 1999, heavy in debt and not capable of matching Rangers F.C. and Celtic F.C. in the transfer market, the Dons needed to appoint a successful coach who could work with a small budget. So the club went for the fashionable idea of appointing a successful foreign coach, Ebbe Skovdahl. In Skovdahl's first season at Aberdeen, the club finished bottom of the SPL, but as rival club Falkirk F.C.'s home ground was unfit for SPL football, the two clubs never contested the scheduled two leg play-off for the final place in the SPL, and Aberdeen stayed in the league. Despite overseeing one of the poorest sides in Aberdeen's recent history in his first season in charge, Skovdahl proved popular with the fans. In that first year he brought in many foreign signings, with mixed success, and among his signings were Arild Stavrum, Hicham Zerouali, and Roberto Bisconti. The one highlight of Skovdahl's first season was that Aberdeen reached both the Scottish League Cup final and the Scottish Cup final, however they lost both finals to Celtic and Rangers respectively.

In the following season Aberdeen's fortunes improved domestically, but Aberdeen faced a defeat to Irish side Bohemians in the UEFA Cup on the away goals rule; the opposite result of when Aberdeen had won against Bohemians in the UEFA cup in their glory years, 13 years earlier. The next year Aberdeen improved dramatically as Skovdahl guided them to 4th place in the league, helping to develop defenders Kevin McNaughton, Russell Anderson, Philip McGuire, striker Darren Mackie, and goalkeeper Ryan Esson.

Yet with the Bosman ruling, and Aberdeen's substantial debt, which had built up before Skovdahl became manger, it became clear that the system Skovdahl had used with Brøndby could not be maintained at Aberdeen. With many of the players he had developed on short term contract, and likely to leave at the end of the 2002-03 season, it became clear to Skovdahl that he could not in the long term achieve at Aberdeen what he had with Brøndby. The club had a poor domestic start to the 2002-03 campaign, and although the club performed credibly in Europe, with a narrow defeat to Hertha Berlin, the manager resigned.

Danish return

He returned to Danish Superliga club BK Frem, who he tried to save from relegation, though without success. Following disputes with the club board over the long-term aims of the club, Skovdahl resigned in winter 2005.

Honours

* Danish Championship : 1988, 1995-96, 1996-97, 1997-98
*Danish Cup : 1988-89, 1993-94, 1997-98

Quotes

He was famed for his quirky quotes, a couple of his more famous ones being:
*"Statistics are like mini skirts, they give you lots of good ideas, but hide what's important"
*(After a narrow away defeat to Celtic FC) "The operation was a success but the patient died"

The last one is actually a Danish proverb which is still often being used.

References