\n<\/p>\n
The softly-spoken McFarlane is an enigma. He has only a small social media presence. He has established a successful football coaching career away from the limelight.<\/p>\n
He grew up in Forest Hill, south London, and in his words, was a “failed footballer”, who moved into youth coaching.<\/p>\n
Alongside part-time roles at Crystal Palace and Fulham’s academy, McFarlane started coaching Lambeth Tigers. <\/p>\n
There, a chance meeting shaped his future.<\/p>\n
There were two boys from Norway at the club who just happened to be the sons of former Tromso player Thomas Hafstad.<\/p>\n
“In 2012, I spent a year in London observing academies at different clubs in England,” Hafstad, who played 260 games for the northernmost football club in the world, told BBC Sport.<\/p>\n
“Instantly, I could see Calum was a very good coach. He listened to the players – young boys of 11 and 12 – and really understood how to work with them.”<\/p>\n
Hafstad, now Tromso technical director, said it was easy to see McFarlane “would be a great asset”.<\/p>\n
“Even then, he had a strong knowledge of the game, but what stood out most was his man\u2011management,” he added. <\/p>\n
Hafstad took McFarlane to Tromso, initially as as an Under-14s coach. <\/p>\n
“He did very well in two years with us,” said Hafstad.<\/p>\n
“He moved up to coach the under\u201119s and even took first-team sessions. At the time, we were in European competitions, so it was a strong period for the club.<\/p>\n
“We’ve stayed in touch. I spent a few days at Chelsea’s academy in November last year, so we still have a close connection. I have no problem believing he could become a top manager in the near future.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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The softly-spoken McFarlane is an enigma. He has only a small social media presence. He has established a successful football coaching career away from the limelight. He grew up in Forest Hill, south London, and in his words, was a “failed footballer”, who moved into youth coaching. Alongside part-time roles at Crystal Palace and Fulham’s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}