He was rewarded with a starting place, in defence, with Jaap Stam in the final against Bayern Munich in Barcelona. Though he won many medals at United, Johnsen will feel that he could have played even more of a part at the club because his time was blighted mainly be a chronic knee injury.
He was then given a free transfer. As the dust settled on his time in England, he and fellow Norwegian international, a player familiar with Premiership fans — Oyvind Leonhardsen — had a trial with German side Schalke. That move fell through so Johnsen returned to the Premiership and signed for Aston Villa.
He spent two seasons at Villa, and it seemed that his value as a player to the club was not as useful as it was during his time with United.
If anything it seemed that having had injuries earlier in his career limited what he could offer to Villa and he was subsequently sold to Newcastle in That was to finally be it for Johnsen as a player in England, and seemingly as a player for good.
He retired for good in November Johnsen has been seen representing the United Masters Football five-a-side team up until recently and currently he deals in real estate in Norway. You can follow me on www. Whatever happened to Ronny Johnsen? Click here to comment on this article or Give us feedback on your Football FanCast experience.
The Norway international believes that decision may have sealed the Reds manager's long-term respect for him, and convinced the Scottish boss to come back for his signature, later in And I was just thinking what to say [to him]. I didn't know what to say, but when he called me, we spoke and he said: 'Do you want to come over? We want to sign you. It felt like you leave somebody [your team] behind, if you know what I mean?
You never know, to be honest, but he came after the season luckily, and I came [to United]. And maybe he saw that as a respect thing," said Johnsen. Eric [Cantona] brought him in. It was fine. What did intimidate the man from Sandefjord, however, was the "scary" experience of entering a United dressing room full of international stars. However, joining at the same time as compatriot Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and three other players, was a help.
I'd played with Ole in the national team as well, so we knew each other from there. At that time, it was probably one of the best teams in Norway — they had a really good team — and we were going to play Molde.
At that time, Molde did really well as well. They were scoring a lot of goals, quite surprisingly, and I was like: 'Who is this? Come on — you're going to get it now! Ole scored as well. They were so good playing together, these three guys, and the whole team as well. I don't remember the result, but I remember Ole was scoring, so I was surprised.
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