Brian Riemer is the new head coach of RSC Anderlecht. After leading his first trainings and a friendly game, the Dane sat down for his first interview. Opening up about his football philosophy, his experiences at Copenhagen and Brentford, about the Made in Neerpede stars of the Premier League and The Danish connection with our club.
About Copenhagen and Brentford:
“I worked for 10 years in Copenhagen, the biggest club in Scandinavia. The demands are sky high in a club that needs to win the championship every year, wants to play European football every year.After that, I went for a completely different challenge in Brentford. It’s a team that came from the second tier of English football, that had to do unbelievable things to promote, with the lowest budgets, the worst training grounds. You had to create magic, and you had to get the best out of everything. It was a project built on talent. We had to make players that were not Premier League players, become Premier League players."
"I had a top relationship with Thomas Frank, who’s the head coach at Brentford. I’ve known him for many years and Thomas knew my qualities. One of the reasons I found the project ar Brentford so interesting, was that it was a partnership between me and Thomas. Because of the responsibilities Thomas allowed me to have at Brentford, I never felt like an assistant-coach. I was already working on head coach elements at Brentford.”
On ‘The Danish connection’ at Anderlecht and on Neerpede:
“I was born in 1978, and throughout the 80s Anderlecht was a massive club in Denmark. You had Morten Olsen, you had Per Frimann. You had top players coming to Anderlecht, like Pär Zetterberg from Sweden. So some of the biggest stars at that time in Scandinavian football were playing football for Anderlecht. 34 championships, I think that speaks for itself. So I think that is probably the picture I’ve had since my childhood.”
“In youth tournaments, Anderlecht was always the best team. I remember I always thought: that’s crazy. There are so many big clubs in Europe, with massive budgets. But when you travel to tournaments abroad, Anderlecht is always the best team. In the last 10 years, I’ve always been very attracted to the academy in Anderlecht. Because a club like Anderlecht continuously producing these talents, that’s simply amazing. So for me to be a part of that now, is just a massive privilege.”
“From my time in the Premier League and English football in general for the last 4 or 5 years, I have seen the quality that has come through to play in the best league in the world. Tielemans, Dendoncker, Lukaku when he was there, it’s amazing for me to see. If I’m honest, I think one of the players who’s harmed Brentford the most, is probably Tielemans. Everytime we played him, he hurt us. That only made my admiration for the academy in Anderlecht even bigger.”
On his football philosophy:
"The team I want to see, is an aggressive Anderlecht team.I want us to come out with energy, pace, power. I want us to be a team that’s impossible to break down. I want us to be a team that regains possession quickly, that never allows the opposition to take the initiative. I want us to be a team that comes out with all energy that we have in every single game. I want us to make sure that we show how much talent we have in the squad. That we’re not afraid to make mistakes. We need to go out and love to play football, love to entertain. That opportunism, that freedom, and that self-confidence, that’s the Anderlecht team I want to see. Hopefully we’ll be able to show that quite soon.”
