When Viking FK claimed their first Norwegian league title in 34 years last season, the players and coaches daring enough to dream of Champions League nights got exactly what they wished for.

The Stavanger club travel to Aston Villa on Wednesday carrying enormous momentum — their previous Champions League fixture ended in a thrilling 3-3 draw with Bayern Munich, a match in which they led 2-0 at the break before requiring a stoppage-time goal to secure a point.

Captain Zlatko Tripic captured the emotion of that evening perfectly. Speaking to Norwegian broadcaster TV2 after the Bayern match, the 33-year-old winger said: "I could have played another 90 minutes. I'm so incredibly proud. I've waited 34 years for this."

A partnership nobody expected to work

Viking's resurrection is inseparable from the story of their unconventional leadership. Joint head coaches Morten Jensen and Bjarte Lunde Aarsheim — both former assistants — took charge together in 2021 and delivered the title last season. They currently lead the Norwegian top flight again this season, three points clear of Bodo/Glimt, though Viking have played one game more.

Aarsheim, who spent most of his playing career at the club, described the arrangement to the BBC's Euro Leagues show. "It's a special story," he said. "We were born Viking fans, we've been playing in Viking. We were working together as assistant coaches and the dream job in managing Viking came up. We said let's do it together."

In a separate interview with The Guardian, Aarsheim framed the club's identity in striking terms: "For us, Viking is Barcelona. The players have to understand that we see Viking as more than a club. In our heads, it's the best team in the world."

Jensen, who was registered as a player at Viking without making a first-team appearance, spoke of the duo's willingness to go against convention. "If you dare sometimes to go against the strides then you can achieve great things," he said. "If you're going to follow and do whatever everybody else does, maybe we become a poor replica. So for now we're happily married here and we love working together."

Plunged into the deep end

This is Viking's first European group-stage campaign since the 2005–06 UEFA Cup — a leap straight into the continent's premier competition. Their group-stage schedule includes fixtures against Aston Villa, Atletico Madrid, and Napoli, as well as the home encounter with Bayern Munich.

Jensen called the fixture list "the whole buffet." "We go to England, we go to Germany, we go to Italy, we go to Spain," he said. "We go to Napoli, Diego Maradona's old playground, against Atletico Madrid we'll be up against Diego Simeone's side. And obviously Aston Villa as well — Norwegians are quite obsessed with English football, and our old assistant coach Pal Fjall is set-piece coach there."

Aarsheim acknowledged how surreal the journey feels. "It's almost unreal," he said. "We talked about maybe going into the Conference League to learn, then the Europa League. And we just jumped into the best party ever."

From relegation to the summit

Viking's road to this point was not without serious turbulence. In 2017, under English manager Ian Burchnall, the club were relegated for the first time in 31 years — a damaging period marked by overspending on underperforming players.

The response was a return to foundations. Veteran coach Bjarne Berntsen, who had previously managed the club from 1992 to 1995, came back for the second-tier campaign in 2018 with Aarsheim and Jensen as his assistants. They won promotion at the first attempt and lifted the 2019 Norwegian Cup — their first piece of silverware since 2001.

Berntsen was unexpectedly dismissed after a sixth-place finish in 2020, with his two assistants stepping into the role. Scepticism was widespread. "People were laughing or asking questions," Viking fan and podcaster Lars Risan told BBC Radio 5 Live. "They figured out how they wanted to do it and stuck to it. They're both from Stavanger and love the club."

After third-place finishes in 2021 and 2022, the duo guided the team to the title last season on the final day, hammering Valerenga 5-1 at home to hold off Bodo/Glimt by a single point — ending a drought stretching back to 1991.

The captain who came back

Central to Viking's rise is Tripic himself. The Croatia-born forward joined immediately after the 2017 relegation, arriving from Moldovan club Sheriff Tiraspol. He had previously won the Norwegian title twice with Molde in 2011 and 2012.

"It was a big surprise when Zlatko turned up," said Risan. "He was a profile, someone we didn't think we could sign. But he really liked the idea of taking the club to something great and being part of a good story."

Tripic scored the winning goal in the 2019 cup final against Haugesund, departed for Turkish side Goztepe in 2020, and returned 18 months later. Since coming back, he has recorded double figures in both goals and assists across three consecutive seasons — a feat no Viking player had previously achieved.

Against Bayern Munich, he set up two goals including the crucial late equaliser — the latest chapter in a comeback story that, as Risan put it, "took Viking back to the top of the table."