Viking FK's Two-Headed Coaching Revolution in Stuttgart
Norwegian champions Viking FK arrive in Germany this week carrying one of European football’s boldest ideas – and a place in the Champions League to prove it works.
On the team sheet, it looks simple: Viking vs VfB Stuttgart at the MHP Arena on Wednesday. On the touchline, it’s anything but. Morten Jensen and Bjarte Lunde Aarsheim share the job, the power and the pressure. Two head coaches. One dugout.
This is no gimmick, no emergency solution born from crisis. The co-management model has been in place since January 2021, when Viking ripped up the traditional hierarchy and handed equal authority to both men. No manager-assistant dynamic, no hidden pecking order. Every big call, from tactics to team selection, is made together.
The gamble has reshaped the club.
Under Jensen and Lunde Aarsheim, Viking have climbed back to the summit of Norwegian football, turning potential into sustained success. The Stavanger side ended a 34-year wait for the Eliteserien title in 2025, reclaiming a crown last worn in a different era and announcing themselves again as a force at home.
They have stayed there, too. Viking remain locked in the title race with Bodo/Glimt, proof that the dual-leadership experiment is not just a one-season surge but a structure that delivers consistency across campaigns.
The European breakthrough felt like a natural next step. Their play-off victory over Dinamo Zagreb did more than secure a place among the continent’s elite; it served as validation on the biggest stage. Jensen did not hide what it meant, describing the achievement as “overwhelming and everything we’ve ever dreamed of.”
Those dreams are shared. So is everything else.
On matchdays, Jensen and Lunde Aarsheim split responsibilities, from the training ground to the technical area to the media glare. Both front up, both direct, both carry the weight of decisions. The shared approach works in part because both men are steeped in Viking’s identity. Lunde Aarsheim, in particular, is woven into the club’s fabric, sitting eighth on Viking’s all-time appearance list as a player.
Out on the pitch, their ideas need a voice and a heartbeat. That belongs to Zlatko Tripic.
The captain is the conduit between the co-coaches’ whiteboard and the reality of 90 minutes. He has embraced the role, leading with the authority of someone who understands both the tactical demands and the emotional stakes. Against Dinamo Zagreb, Tripic rose to the moment, scoring in both legs of the play-off to push Viking into the Champions League group stage for the first time since 1992.
That kind of timing changes a club’s story. It also sharpens the focus on what comes next.
Now the dual-coaching project goes on tour. The 1,150-kilometre journey from Stavanger to Stuttgart is more than a flight to an away game; it is a test bed for a philosophy that challenges how a modern football club can be run. The MHP Arena becomes a stage not just for players but for an idea that has already bent the domestic landscape in Norway.
Viking will need all of it – the clarity of two aligned minds, the discipline of a squad drilled in shared principles, the leadership of Tripic – to trouble Stuttgart on their own turf. The plan is clear: execute the co-coaches’ game model cleanly, stay brave, and turn an unusual structure into an historic European result.
If they pull it off, the question will not be why Viking chose two head coaches.
It will be how long before others follow.
