The sudden loss of his older brother nearly ten years ago made him think more about the time one has at one’s disposal in life. That you have to live while you can. – I still visit him every day. Sometimes it feels like he’s not completely gone either. The brothers Dan and Frode Johnsen stayed together throughout their lives. Photo: Private “Tidenes” Japan pro. The oldest Norwegian national team player of all time. The oldest top scorer of all time in the Eliteserien and Europe. And at the risk of repeating ourselves – the Odd legend was the all-time oldest goalscorer in a European club tournament as well. “The times” is undoubtedly a word that sticks when you read about the 188 cm tall footballer on Wikipedia. But will Frode Johnsen be the participant of all time in the Master of Masters? Frode Johnsen wreaked havoc on the football field throughout his career. This winter you will get to know him better in Mesternes mester on news. Photo: Solum, Stian Lysberg / NTB scanpix When the question arose about taking part in the fourteenth season of the popular series, the answer was simple. But not because of all the attention. It was the experience itself that lured. The man who modestly calls himself “a kind of caretaker” is full of words of praise for his competitors and what they have achieved. The distinguished sportsman himself feels lucky to have had the financial security that football provides. – Many of the others have almost had to sponsor themselves. It’s pretty impressive. Frode Johnsen is currently participating in the series Mesternes mester on Fridays this winter. Photo: Heidi Marie Gøperød / Nordisk Banijay/news He is not as keen on winning as before. – In croquet at home in the garden, certainly, but not in physical sports. I have not retained the same winning instinct as Olav Tufte, for example. He has, so to speak. If there is one thing he has not missed from his professional career, it is the focus on himself. – I think it’s wonderful to be anonymous. I’m unlikely to become a superstar just because I’m in the Master of Masters. Luckily. This year’s participants. From left Andreas Lødrup, Kristin Holte, Ezinne Okparaebo, Ola Vigen Hattestad, Olaf Tufte, Hanne Staff, Stig-André Berge, Helene Spilling, Frode Johnsen, Linn Jørum Sulland. Photo: Heidi Marie Gøperød / Nordisk Banijay/news Feet on the ground – Think about it, then. Here my father swam into the river in the middle of winter to retrieve the ball we had lost in the water. So cold, shudders the 48-year-old. Frost smoke comes from the mouth of the former national team player. The zip on the black parka, free of sponsor logos, is closed all the way up to the tip of the chin. Lua hangs a little on the snow. Football left its mark on Frode Johnsen’s childhood, but he never felt any pressure from home. Photo: Nils Fridtjof Skumsvoll / news Frode Johnsen has his feet firmly planted on the ground as he looks out over his childhood playground at Skotfoss. It is simply freezing cold on the football field down by the river that runs past the settlement a few kilometers outside the center of Skien. The numbers on the scale tell us that a few months have passed since the summer’s recording of the Master of the Masters. He gently greets the veterans who are going to the Wednesday cafe in the clubhouse of the Skotfoss turn and sports association. Here, most people are on first names. Frode Johnsen has not forgotten old skills on the football field. Photo: Nils Fridtjof Skumsvoll / news They are happy to lend him a football in honor of the photographer, and immediately the leather ball is in the air. The skills that once made football a way of life are still there. This is where it all began. Trained all year round They were always on the track, the loop or in the school yard. As long as there was a ball, there was entertainment. The brothers Dan and Frode Johnsen were together about everything. They lived closest to the football field during their upbringing at Skotfoss. Photo: Private fixed plan. The father hit passes. Big brother Dan and little brother Frode practiced endings. His friend Kjetil stood like a wall in the goal. If there was ice on the pitch, they trained with spikes under their shoes. Training all year round. – Exactly that was probably quite abnormal at the time, and an important reason why I became good at endings. The sofa rarely tempted. The youngster was completely uninterested in watching football on TV, and what they were doing away in England. – It was the gameplay itself that was fun. He never envisioned a professional career as a child, but still had a clear goal on the field. To be better than both big brother and his friends in football. It went pretty well. He has succeeded in a lot, Frode Johnsen. But life has also been difficult. The heavy phone – He was, after all, the first and toughest at everything. He’s talking about his big brother. Dan. The best friend who is no longer here. Big brother Dan and Frode Johnsen in a familiar pose. The two were best friends, even in adulthood. Photo: Privat Everything happened very quickly. On Sunday 25 August 2013, Frode received the heaviest phone of his life. He knew that Dan was on a trip to do base jumping at Gudvangen in Aurland. The brother loved extreme sports, and constantly pushed new boundaries. Dan always told his family and friends that it was safe, but Frode must have sensed an anxiety. He had seen the movies. – It got wilder and wilder, he remembers. Dan Johnsen, Frode’s older brother, loved extreme sports. Photo: Frøydis Asp Ormaasen This time it wasn’t Dan who called. It was the friend. Then Frode began to feel bad. On the phone, he was told that his older brother, his lifelong best friend, had not come down to the agreed place. – I had to call my parents and tell them about what had happened. It was difficult, he remembers. The wait until the final message from the search teams came was tough. Dan Johnsen (40) was found dead. Although the grief was heavy at the start, he soon chose to concentrate on his family. Those who were left. The friends. – I have no formula for how to deal with things, but for us it eventually went well. The family has chosen to focus on the good memories. – Fortunately, there are many of them. I am grateful for everything we got to experience as brothers. He was a role model, says Frode. – Dan had a wonderful life. He did what he wanted. Lately, the brothers have been at odds. Frode Johnsen back on old plots. Here at the football field at Skotfoss, where the adventure began. Photo: Nils Fridtjof Skumsvoll / news Football and police We rewind to the nineties. Although Frode himself realized that he was quite good at playing ball, he did not see himself as a footballer as a profession. The Skotfoss boy wanted to become a policeman. He started at the police college in Oslo at the same time as playing football at Odd, and completed the first year. The second year he was in practice in his home town of Skien. However, football was at least as important as studies in the young man’s life. Already in 1992, he started playing for Odd, and followed the Skien club’s journey from the 2nd division until they moved up to the elite series in 1999. He and his older brother Dan lived a carefree bachelor life in their childhood home. Specifically at Løveid by the beautiful Telemark Canal. Frode Johnsen in front of the house on Løveid, where he and his brother Dan lived when they were younger. He still owns the house with his mother. Photo: Nils Fridtjof Skumsvoll / news The parents had separated a few years earlier, and found new life partners. The two brothers of the same age were allowed to live in their mother’s house on their own. A red-painted log house from 1875, which Frode still owns with his mother to this day. – We lacked nothing. I was probably 20, and my brother a little older. Best friends. Party and keep going. It’s good we had understanding neighbors. But we wash clothes and such, he laughs. The older brother became more and more interested in extreme sports. Frode bet everything on football. – We were probably looking for a kick in different ways. The Odd players gained increasingly higher status. Including striker Frode Johnsen. Then one day the phone came that made him understand that maybe football could be a full-time job. The top team Rosenborg needed a new striker, and surprised the whole of football Norway with the choice. – Nils Arne Eggen had apparently not recognized my name when it was proposed, but I got the chance anyway. He accepted. It would turn out to be a wise decision. For both parties. He scored five goals in six Champions League games in the first autumn. Over the next six years, the player from Skien made sure to score 126 goals for Rosenborg in 234 games. The effort also secured him a place in the national team. Frode Johnsen and Ole Gunnar Solskjær at the national team meeting in 2006. Photo: Poppe, Cornelius / NTB scanpix – Suddenly you are standing at Ullevål with your parents in the stands and the flag on your chest. I will remember that forever. At the same time, he had to make another decisive choice. The police uniform had to give way in favor of the football kit. Without him being able to complete his education. – I would probably have had a very nice life as a policeman as well, but football was too tempting. Soon the world would open up for the footballer. Japan and love In Trondheim, he met Mette Sundland, a girl from Trondheim who is three years his junior. They quickly hit it off and soon they were a couple. Since then, the two have stayed together. – A lovely lady who is quite like me. A bit like a tomboy. She is not afraid of things. Mette Sundland and Frode Johnsen are today married and live in the latter’s hometown of Skien. Together they have children Oscar, 17, and Mathilde, 12. Photo: Arash A. Nejad Life was soon to take them on a long journey. In 2006, Nagoya Grampus in Japan showed an interest in the Norwegian player. The couple had just had their son Oscar, and together with the then 8-month-old boy, they set off on an adventure to the land of the sunrise. He didn’t think soccer was that big in Japan. It would turn out to be a solid delusion. When the family entered the arrival hall at the airport, Frode was immediately ushered into a press room. Fifty journalists were waiting there who wanted to talk to the new player from the country’s far north. Frode Johnsen pictured during a press conference for Nagoya Grampus in Japan. Photo: Kyodo News / Scanpix/AP The family had a great time, both on and off the pitch. What was initially intended as a short stay, was to prove to be long. At the same time, the family increased from three to four when little sister Mathilde was born. After two years, he received an offer from the club Shimizu S-Pulse, and stayed for two more years. The club had provided him with a translator of his own, so Frode never learned the language. – He could run up and down the touchline and translate comments from the coach both during matches and in training. Totally unnecessary, but that’s how it is in Japan. The son, on the other hand, had a better ear for languages, recalls Frode. – He spoke both Norwegian, Japanese and English when he was four years old. Back to the old club When little Oscar started school, however, the family decided to turn their noses back home. The choice fell on Skien. Old club Odd welcomed Frode home with a new contract from 2011. There were four new years of havoc on the field, and 58 goals spread over 148 matches. Frode Johnsen was thanked before the elite series match between Odd and Lillestrøm at Skagerak Arena on 8 November 2015. Photo: Teigen, Trond Reidar / NTB scanpix When he was thanked in 2015, he was the oldest man in the elite series, and had proven that football is something you can go on for quite a while. Also as a way of life. A gathered audience rose in respect. Keeping the big secret – I made good money, but I would never have played this long if it wasn’t for the fact that I had fun. Without the joy of the game, you don’t last long as a footballer, says Frode. Today, the family lives in Skien. The wife runs a clothes shop in the center of town. He himself deals with letting property. – I guess I’m actually a kind of caretaker. Travels around and fixes things up in the apartments when an upgrade is needed. Paint a little here and screw up some stuff there. – Do you miss life on the football field? – Absolutely not. There is a time for everything. Frode Johnsen at Odd Stadium in Skien. The place where the professional career started. Photo: Nils Fridtjof Skumsvoll / news The big question – who will win the Master of Masters – he keeps quiet about. Not even the wife has found out how it is going. – What will you remember best? – Everything, really. The nice people. The unity. I felt it was an honor to be a part of it. Then he suddenly smiles broadly. – The pea bag competition with Olav Tufte. It is legendary. Frode Johnsen tries his hand at the “Pea Bag Competition” during the recording of the Master of Masters in Sandefjord. Photo: Heidi Marie Gøperød / Nordisk Banijay/news The participants in the Champion of Masters 2023 Stig-André Berge (39), wrestling Ola Vigen Hattestad (40), cross-country skiing Kristin Holte (36), crossfit Frode Johnsen (48), football Andreas Lødrup (37) ), kickboxing Ezinne Okparaebo (34), athletics Helene Spilling (26), sports dance Hanne Staff (50), orienteering Linn Jørum Sulland (38), handball Olaf Tufte (46), rowing
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Footballer Frode Johnsen is fighting to become the Champion of Champions – Vestfold and Telemark
