On Thursday evening, FC Midtjylland will take on Dinamo Zagreb in the Europa League, with the chance to qualify for the last 16 of the tournament after a glorious campaign that has so far given them an impressive 4th spot in the league phase. But if the players thought they could rest on their laurels after that, they are surely mistaken.
Around eight hours after the clash against the Croatians, the complete squad will board a flight bound for the extreme north of the Scottish Highlands, where they will be asked to survive for nearly three days in the freezing wilderness with temperatures often below twenty degrees Celsius.
Different strategy
In January, most teams from Northern Europe set sail for the southern hemispheres where luxurious training pitches and warm weather conditions ideal for healing muscle fatigue will provide the perfect setup for brightening spirits for a potentially demotivated squad. But not so at FC Midtjylland, who uses a different strategy that has paid dividends for them. FC Midtjylland, which was founded in 1999 through a merger between Ikast and Herning Fremad, has won four Danish titles, and on all occasions, the club scheduled survival trips at the beginning of the year to boost team spirits ahead of a tough spring campaign.
This year, the trip has been tough to arrange, given the fact that it has to be scheduled in between FC Midtjylland’s Europa League match and the crucial clash against reigning Danish champions FC Copenhagen on 8 February. But club owner Anders Holch Poulsen has encouraged FC Midtjylland's mental coach, B.S. Christiansen, a former elite soldier, who is in charge of the ordeals which the players and staff must endure in Scotland, to proceed with the plans for this year's trip as a testament to a club that is not afraid to take unusual choices towards success.
In Scotland, the players and coaches/staff will be asked to survive in severe conditions, live off the land with very little equipment, and no mobile phones. The players have to set up camp, learn how to make a fire, fish, and shoot deer and skin it, in addition to crossing lakes and rivers during a trip, which will test their abilities of working together to the maximum. According to Christiansen, the trip aims to get the players to find out who they really are.
“No one can hear you call out in the wilderness.”
“When I take them out in the wilderness where they can get no help, the only help they can get is from each other. If they scream for help, no one will hear them. They also have to deal with the uncertainty of what is going to happen from one hour to the next. The last time we were in Scotland, I said to them: 'Now you have to survive three days in the Scottish fantastic nature, if you can handle that, we have what it takes to win the Danish title, he says to Flashscore. One of the key elements of the trips is to further leadership qualities within the squad.
“It’s the ideal place to test our leaders in the group. On the pitch and in the locker room, you can perhaps hide a little bit, but out there you have to step into character.”
“They are divided into four groups, and then the leader, assisted by his second-in-command, must help solve tasks that I have given them. It is about communication, guiding, leading, and creating motivation, and they can use that when they have to go back and stand on the football pitch,” says B.S. Christiansen
B.S. Christiansen, who also arranged survival trips into the wilderness for the Team CSC cycling team, laying the platform for them to win the Tour de France, underlines that these trips should not be underestimated, even though he occasionally experiences that people frown upon them.
Not like any other club
“Over the years, I've heard people frown on these trips or make fun of them, but it's their own insecurity that they're expressing because they can see the results of what we do. They did the same in 2015 when we won the first championship, and then they suddenly became interested in what we had done.”
No other football clubs in Europe send a squad worth millions of euros into the wilderness (along with all the staff, coaches, team leaders, physiotherapists, etc.) with the many risks involved to groom them for an upcoming season, but then again, FC Midtjylland is not like any other club.
“A lot of people think we are crazy for doing this, especially in between two crucial matches, but we do it because we know it can make a difference. What is important is to build your team stronger and stronger. When I look at football players, they live very individually, and they are quite privileged. When we go on these trips, you can’t get help from anyone but yourself and your team, and there are consequences for all your actions. If you don’t stay dry in the Arctic, you will freeze, if you don't make a proper camp, you will not sleep well, and if you don’t catch your food, you will starve.”
19 different nationalities have to work together
"We have 19 different nationalities in the team. The better they understand each other and know how to help and support each other - and also ask for help amongst themselves - the better they play football. We are building a team that is strong in adversity. You never see anyone in our club in open conflict; the players never argue on the pitch or shout at the coach, never. What they learn out there, we can use when we come under pressure in matches”, says B.S. Christiansen.
Danish TV channel TV Midvest documented the trip to Scotland in three episodes in 2024, which revealed the growing frustrations among the players along the way. Turkish international Aral Simsir, in particular, seemed strongly dissatisfied with B.S. Christiansen at one point.
"I don't know what the hell he's up to. He thinks we are soldiers. When you do something like this, you just have to know the limit", said the young midfielder back then, but later didn’t hide his admiration for the former elite soldier. "I love B.S. and learned a lot on this trip that I have used later in life”, said Simsir. B.S. Christiansen underlines that players are under severe pressure during the trips, but still never complain to him.
Players looking concerned during briefing
“The players have never said that they want to quit because they know it’s not an option. When we arrived in Scotland two years ago, where I had told them that they had to bring solid, waterproof boots, there were three players who had only brought sneakers, and then they had to walk for three days in them. Just like when we play in Europe and have problems, you can't give up either”, says B.S. Christiansen, who also reveals that many players looked concerned at the briefing for the trip on Friday, especially the newly recruited Swiss under-21 international Junior Ze, who, immediately after arriving, was let know that he was going on a survival trip in the Scottish wilderness.
Many players today look back on the trips, saying that they have made a true difference in their football lives. Goalkeeper Jonas Lossl is among the players who strongly appreciate the unconventional approach.
"I love team building. I feel privileged to have such experiences. I am very happy that we have someone like B.S. who takes us on trips like this. We feel like we have to go through Hell when we are out there, but in the end, it makes us a much better team," he tells NRK.
Now it remains to be seen whether all the struggles in the wilderness will again make a difference for the Jutland club as they prepare for the restart of the Danish season.
