Yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking to Brentford and Denmark striker Lasse Vibe at Brentford’s training ground, courtesy of Matchbook.com. Betting exchange Matchbook.com gives bettors the opportunity to win more with their bets than any bookmaker on a wide range of football markets and, as a peer-to-peer platform, it enables customers to wager against fellow bettors. To keep up to date on the latest odds and betting news follow Matchbook on Twitter or Facebook.
Lasse has been playing for Brentford since the summer of 2015 following successful spells in Denmark and Sweden. He has been capped nine teams by the Danish national team and was a pleasure to interview.
View the video here:
Due to there being audio problems at a few moments because of background noise, a transcript is provided below.
Hugo: Lasse, I’m speaking to you off the back of a disappointing game against Middlesbrough yesterday. Brentford looked promising but ended up losing. What are your thoughts on the game? Do you think you could have got more out of it?
Lasse: Definitely. The game itself wasn’t that disappointing because the performance was good, but it’s not about performance; it’s about winning the game. I thought this was a classic example—if you don’t take your chances you aren’t going to go away with anything. I thought we were the better team for most of the game but we gave them goal and we gave them what they wanted. They’re good at what they do.
Hugo: You got into football at a very young age. How did you get into it?
Lasse: I grew up with it. My dad played it (not professionally) and my mum played as well, so we’ve always been a sporty family and I loved it. I just kept going with it from when I was five and I started at a club.
Hugo: When you were growing up in Denmark, you would’ve grown up at a very good time for Danish football with many great players, many of whom our viewers will remember. In fact, when you were five years old Denmark won the 1992 European Championship. Who were your heroes?
Lasse: Obviously the Laudrup brothers as they were very successful. Michael was a big hero because he played for Barcelona and Real Madrid—two of the biggest clubs in the world—and in the national team Brian, his brother, was always doing well, and I’ve always been amazed by those two attackers as an attacking player. Also Peter Schmeichel because of that Van Basten penalty he saved in 1992. When he went to Manchester United I started following both him and Manchester United.
Hugo: You signed your first professional contract with AGF Aarhus. When you were there it took a while before you made your first team debut—you were twenty when that happened—and you had a few injury problems, but you never really cracked the first team. Why do you think you didn’t make it into the first team?
Lasse: I was slow in my progression in getting used to senior football. That’s the first answer. The second is that I was out for about fourteen months in what was supposed to be my first senior year which was not good. When I was 19 or 20, I was old enough to train with the first team but nobody really knew who I was because I’d been injured the whole time. I wasted those two years there and that’s haunted me ever since.
Hugo: You moved to FC Fyn to help your career progress and then you moved to FC Vestsjælland and SønderjyskE. That’s when your career started to take off; you even won your first silverware with FC Fyn. Did you feel that you were doing things differently or were you doing the same things but more effectively?
Lasse: Basically, I was doing the same thing. The thing is that if you don’t get time playing real games—I only played under-21 games for AGF Aarhus apart from two first team games—it doesn’t help. The under-21 league in Denmark at that time was in the third tier and the team that I moved to [FC Fyn] was in the same league, but because it was the first team the pressure was just different. We were striving towards getting promotion to the second tier (which we did) and the pressure that was on us was completely different. That was an important part of my footballing education. Doing the same things in the first team is always different, which is why I progressed after that.
Hugo: After that you moved to Sweden with IFK Göteborg, where you had real success. You scored 30 goals for club and country in 2014 and then in 2015 you won the Swedish Cup, scoring in the final. Do you think those two years were a turning point and were they the best of your career so far?
Lasse: 2014 is definitely the best year of my career so far, but the turning point was a few years before. When I was at SønderjyskE I got my first call-up for the national team. That was amazing because seven months before that I was playing in the second tier in Denmark, so those seven months were the turning point. In the early years of my career I played under managers who didn’t really believe in me. They saw I could score goals but they didn’t believe in me, but at SønderjyskE the first thing they said about me was: “He’s got to play in the first team. He’s got pace and he score goals” and they adapted their whole game around me. That gave me a real confidence boost and turned my career around.
Hugo: During that time you were studying for a master’s degree in Finance and Accounting, which you recently were awarded. Is that an area you want to go into after football?
Lasse: I don’t know. I’ve been doing economics for years; being able to balance the books is something you do every day, even for footballers, but I’m 28 years old, I still have (hopefully) a good few years left in the game, and I haven’t really decided yet. My dad is an economist and I’ve always had an interest in numbers and banking. To be honest with you I didn’t have much success [in football] at 18-19, and football wasn’t enough for me. The year after what you’d call secondary school I had a free year where I was a full-time football player and I was bored. I’m not into playing on the Playstation and stuff like that so I figured that if I was going to become a footballer I wouldn’t be able to do it without doing something else, which is why I started. I found it fun, which is why I continued, and we’ll see where it takes me in the future.
Hugo: Back to 2015 and 2016. In the summer, Brentford came calling effectively halfway through the Swedish season. You were a bit of a cult hero in Sweden, and did that make moving to England a difficult decision or was your mind made up the moment Brentford made an offer?
Lasse: After the success of my 2014 season I was expected to leave [in January 2015] as that’s when the season finished. I’d also had success with the national team; we beat some big teams and I played in those matches. I was expecting to move, as was everyone else, but in January the clubs don’t buy as much as they do in the summer—the European clubs at least—and I turned down a couple of big money moves from other continents as I didn’t want to make those kinds of moves. I wanted to play football “for real”. I never dreamt of playing football in China. Therefore once a European football club approached me I thought it was an easy decision. Leaving Gothenburg wasn’t easy—definitely not—but I knew it was time to go and that this was the right choice and I’m happy I made it.
Hugo: You actually started off your Brentford career on the wing. You did perfectly well there, scoring five goals in eleven games. Although you prefer playing as a striker do you think you’re as comfortable playing on the wing as you are up front?
Lasse: I think it depends on the system. At Brentford I feel I get too isolated playing on the wing, especially if I play on the right hand side. When I was playing on the right we had [Alan] Judge playing on the left and cutting inside, just as we do now with [John] Swift, and I think I would always get too isolated out there. With this system I prefer to play in the middle somewhere. At Göteborg we played 4-4-2 so I was a striker there and I think that really suits me. I’ll play wherever the manager wants me to play but if we are to use my strengths as a player it’s best to play me as a striker.
Hugo: The first goal you scored for Brentford happened to be an absolute cracker against Reading [see here]. Is that your favourite goal for Brentford and how does it rank amongst those you’ve scored in your career?
Lasse: It was a good goal, but it’s not even my favourite goal for Brentford. That’s the one against Huddersfield, where I hit it with my left foot into the top corner, because I hit the ball was just amazing. The one against Reading wasn’t even an equaliser or winning goal or anything like that. It was nice to score my first goal and it was a great finish, but I would say the goal against Huddersfield was better. I haven’t score many “great” goals in my career to be perfectly honest, so that’s probably one of my best. I scored a couple for Gotheburg that were decent, but I prefer to score the easy goals.
Hugo: How have you been enjoying life in England and West London?
Lasse: I have indeed. Knowing the language already made it easy to adapt—the first day is always easier if you can adapt—and I’ve got my family here as well. My boys are in school and my wife is happy and can speak English too. Everything is easy. West London is a nice place to live; there are lots of parks and stuff like that. It’s different from where I come from. It’s bigger, particularly compared to where I lived in Sweden by the sea. There will always be things that you miss but I really enjoy it here and I’m very happy.
Hugo: We can probably guess what they’ll be, but if you could pick three things to achieve in your time at Brentford, what would they be?
Lasse: Obviously the biggest thing for me, and probably for Brentford, is to get into the Premier League. I’d love to do that with Brentford. Another thing which I haven’t done, although I’ve been called up to the national team during my time at Brentford, is get on the pitch for Denmark, so I’d be happy to get minutes for them while I’m at Brentford.
Hugo: Do you think moving to Brentford has helped you with the national team?
Lasse: I think it has because it’s put me on a different level. The old national team coach approved of it and thought it was a good idea. Although I played more for Denmark when I was at Gothenburg than I have here so far, I don’t think it has had anything to do with the move because they liked the fact that I came here. I think it will help.
Hugo: Apart from promotion and getting into the national team more regularly, is there one other thing you want to do at Brentford?
Lasse: If we’re not able to get promoted this year then I would like to play a big team in one of the cups next season. That would be great for me on a personal level. I’ve always wanted to play in the cups. I hoped to play in the FA Cup game we had on Saturday, but I was resting, so I still have that on my checklist. If we could play, for example, Manchester United that would be great, and you never know.
Hugo: Thanks very much for your time and thanks to Matchbook.com for giving us this opportunity.
