BERG RETURNS TO OMONOIA

Omonoia have rehired Henning Berg as their manager heading into the 2025-2026 season. The Norwegian manager previously led Omonoia for three successful years from 2019-2022. In that span, Omonoia won a championship in 2021 and an unofficial championship in 2020 in which Omonoia finished in first place, but the Cyprus FA refused to name a champion as the playoffs had not been completed due to the coronavirus(UEFA gave them the rights of a champion for the purposes of European play).

Berg also led Omonoia to the group stage of a European competition for the first time in its history leading them to qualify for the UEFA Europa League in the 2020-2021 season, and the UEFA Conference League in 2021-2022. More recently, Berg is coming off winning the Cyprus Cup with AEK Larnaca, and was also part of Pafos FC’s rise to prominence. As a player, Berg enjoyed great success, as well, including two English championships with Manchester United in 1999 and 2000, and winning the UEFA Champions League with them in 1999, widely considered one of the greatest teams of all-time.

Berg succeeds Technical Director Giannis Anastasiou who finished out the season doing double duty as interim manager after Valdas Dambrauskas was sacked in late November. Omonoia finished third place in Cyprus, good enough to give Berg an immediate mission with UEFA Conference League qualifying on the horizon.

Therefore, this could seem like a no-brainer. One could see this as the club correcting a mistake, as it was considered harsh when the club sacked him at the end of the 2021-2022 regular season after a bad loss in the Nicosia Derby which left Omonoia outside the playoffs. Berg is indeed Omonoia’s best manager in recent memory. Sometimes, however, such reunions are often unsuccessful, the same magic can’t always be recaptured the second time around. Juventus and Massimiliano Allegri comes to mind. This is not the same Omonoia that Berg left three years ago, he’ll have some work to do before the club even embarks upon preseason training. Nonetheless, Omonoia supporters are cautiously optimistic with his return.

Andrew Mantzas

Twitter: @MantzasNC