Daniel Agger exclusive: Choosing HB Køge, Liverpool coaches & Brentford Danes

Here is one for a pub quiz: Name a club, past or present, where a former Liverpool player teamed up with a former Everton player as manager and assistant?

You'd would hard pressed, wouldn't you, but in a small town in Denmark this is exactly what's been going on since the summer of 2021. That is when Liverpool egend Daniel Agger took over the reins of HB Kge and brought Lars Jacobsen with him.

Close to two years after being revealed as the coming pairing to bring the club back to the top ranks of Danish football, Tribalfootball joins Daniel Agger for a chat at club headquarters in the town of Kge, a small half hour drive from Copenhagen.

Entering the room, he still strikes an imposing figure. He's lean, looks incredibly fit and still with the intense stare of a bouncer you do not want to mess with.

PEOPLE CREATE A FOOTBALL CLUB

A lot of strikers tried during his eight-year tenure with Liverpool FC but now he is a coach and happy about where the club is, even though it has been a bit of a bumpy ride.

"We aren't where I thought we'd be now, but the project we entered has changed completely since we took over. That being said, I think we have the best group of talent at our disposal now and the belief is bigger than it has been at any point during our tenure here. Which is quite surprising actually, but in a positive way," says Agger about the club, which finds itself in the second tier of Danish football.

Revealing Daniel Agger as their future head coach back in 2021, the club also laid out big plans to reach the top tier within three seasons, backed by American owners Capelli Sport.

The past 18 months have brought ups and downs, but why did it end up being HB Kge that saw Agger venture into his first managerial assignment?

"Because of the project presented to me and even though that has changed, you can get very far with good people around you. It is the people who create the culture of the football club, not the other way around."

NEEDED A MENTAL BREAK

Daniel Agger joined HB Kge after a five-year hiatus away from football. A break he says was simply necessary.

"It was important for me to mentally completely zone out, and the family needed some new ways to look at and do other things. It was good."

Agger had to end his playing career aged only 31, but refutes the suggestion that he needed time to come to terms with not being able to play anymore.

"I never expected to have a long career because of the way my body is built. I also had doctors tell me fairly early that my body actually wasn't made to play football at that level."

Agger moved the family to the mountains in Spain after bringing the career to an end at Brndby. While there he took his coaching badges and slowly the thought started creeping in that he wasn't all done with football yet.

"I felt I had something to give and some ideas I wanted to share."

BENITEZ WAS INTENSE

Agger was been able to pick up ideas from a few big managers during his career. Rafa Benitez, Kenny Dalglish and Brendan Rodgers at Liverpool, but Agger mentions Steve Clarke as a coach who has been an enormous inspiration.

"Dalglish was a manager in the traditional sense. A great motivator, but Clarke ran the training and he's no doubt one of the best I worked with," reveals Agger about the current Scotland manager.

Steven Gerrard revealed in his memoir he didn't see eye to eye with Rafa Benitez, but Agger denies having had any such problems with the Spaniard.

"But I know what Gerrard means. Benitez lived football 24 hours a day, he was unable to talk about anything else, which could get too intense at times. But he was exceptionally good at setting us up for a specific opponent."

IMPRESSIVE THOMAS FRANK

Agger also worked under current Brentford manager Thomas Frank during his final two seasons at Brndby. Did he picture Frank having such huge success as a Premier League manager seven years later?

"Not at all, and I don't mean that in any sort of negative sense. That's been a fast climb and I'm sure he'd say that himself. Thomas has two really big qualities going for him. You simply can't kill his permanent good mood and he's a workaholic. It is extremely impressive he's come this far in such a short time."

Agger refuses to entertain the idea he might like to manage in the Premier League, or even abroad, himself one day.

"I have my thoughts and focus completely on HB Kge where I want to try out my ideas."

But who knows. If that goes well, there's still a hot line to Liverpool.