A moment with...Lasse and Anders

Meeting with two of the great characters of the game is always special. Meeting with Svan and Eggert even more so. It's a different “A moment with”. It's like hanging out in dressing room with a couple of guys.

Lasse has his phone handy in case his wife goes into labour. We're just chatting. I get Lasse's surname wrong as he has dropped the Hansen, and he tries to explain to a pretty stupid Irish guy, but after that it's plain sailing.

“It's a German team with a Scandinavian spirit”

That's Flensburg in a nutshell. It's a different style to the more southern teams and slightly different to the nearby neighbours Kiel and HSV. Eggert's brother sells tickets to the games and sometimes a thousand Danes venture south to watch the Bundesliga matches. Add to that the numerous Nordic players and the coach and you get a very different philosophy.

“It's a Ljubo thing”

Speaking of the coach, they cannot rate him highly enough. He's a leader says Anders. They both agree he has an aura about him. They knew early on in his tenure that he would be very good. “If you knew him as a player, you knew he would be a great coach”. His approach is psychological as well. He has the team believing they will always win.

“It's the highest”

For two guys who have won at international level as well, it's interesting to hear them differentiate between club versus national team. For club it's about living together and suffering together. “We play, fight and lose together,” says Anders.

This level of intensity over a season led them to believe in the greatest tournament of all and as we know they won. Their take on what was going on in the background at the time is very interesting listening.

“We work in the shadows”

I make fun of their role in the Flensburg team video, available on their website. Most of the players are shown as macho men throwing around tyres, but these two guys talk openly about how they help each other’s game. Lasse is more emotional in his explanation, Eggert more pragmatic. He talks about how his friend's help is maybe not so obvious. But you can see the level of respect they have for each other.

They have learned from each other all along, yet it's interesting to hear Anders speak about what tips the first choice player gives the understudy. The answer is a little different to what you might expect.

From leaders in the team to vanity and forgetfulness, they talk forthrightly about their roles, their national team's achievements and Ljubo's coaching style. Lasse had just scored the 10,000th goal for SG, but, wait for it, Anders gave the assist.

They are a great pair, funny and eloquent. It's an entertaining listen to two guys who have achieved so much at club and international level. The respect for each other is plain to see. I laughed my way through the thirty minutes, I hope you will too.