
Take a look at our newest merchandise
Key occasions
2 minutes: Bodo/Glimt re-huddle after the aim, goalkeeper Nikita Halkin main the chat there. Reset required.
GOAL! Tottenham 1-0 Bodo/Glimt
Forty seconds on the clock, and Spurs lead! They cross from the left, however Johnson can’t management his header. It’s despatched again in from the best, Richarlison heads it again throughout aim, and this time Johnson’s obtained a straightforward job!
1 min: Peeeeeeep! The guests get the ball rolling.
Proper, preambles virtually executed. However earlier than kick-off, a interval of reflection for Pope Francis, not completely noticed.
“If any Spurs followers are pondering of heading to north Norway to pattern the ambiance for the second leg (I assume tickets are lengthy gone), I can verify that the (12-hour) prepare journey north from Bergen is totally gorgeous, the spotlight of an interrail journey to the arctic circle final 12 months,” writes Stuart Jenkinson, because the referee orchestrates the pre-match coin toss. “Each different home/ house was sporting a Bodo/glimt flag, as was the native peak, however sadly no dwelling video games within the brief time we have been there.”
The gamers have joined them, they usually’re on their method out! One finish of the bottom is displaying the Spurs membership motto via holding up black and white plastic sheeting. Flags wave in every single place. One nook could be very, very yellow.
4 minutes to kick-off. The mascots are within the tunnel, ready for the gamers to affix them.
Ange Postecoglou has a chat:
I simply assume the stability of our midfield and what we’re dealing with up towards. The great thing about Lucas, he was the purchase who gave us good stability in there. Tonight Biss [Yves Bissouma] will give us what we want. I feel we should be aggressive tonight. Richie [Richarlison] has been working his method again to health. I feel tonight his expertise, his capacity in and across the field, we need to put a variety of strain on them, and he may assist us fairly a bit.
We outwork each crew, that’s going to be vital tonight. After that it’s self-discipline and organisation to verify our soccer will get us by. We all know it’s going to be a troublesome recreation, we’ve obtained to verify we play our soccer.
“I dunno if anybody has talked about this, however throughout a stunning prepare journey from Liverpool St this afternoon, in a carriage full of jolly singing Bodø/Glimt followers, I requested certainly one of them the place their title comes from,” writes Tom Paternoster-Howe. “Apparently ‘glimt’ means ‘glint’ in English. Looks like a pleasant title for a pleasant membership.”
They have been initially named merely Glimt, earlier than including Bodo to keep away from confusion. Based on the Cambridge Dictionary glimt can imply “glimpse”, as within the phrase “skimte så vidt”, “to catch a glimpse of one thing” or it could possibly imply “sparkle”, as within the phrase “være sjarmerende og humoristisk”, to have a sparkle in a single’s eye. They’re to all intents and functions referred to as Flash.
Right here’s Nick Ames’ report from Bodø on the “huge dream” coming true for the Norwegian aspect:
Nobody is bound exactly when the “espresso desk” custom started, however consensus traces it again about 60 years. It will take so much for one of many regulars to not present up. The time is sort of 11am and cups are being specified by the Aspmyra Stadion canteen for the Bodø/Glimt outdated boys’ day by day catchup. In walks Ivar Bakke, who can depend himself because the group’s elder statesman at 94. “One of many oldest folks in Norway!” he laughs earlier than sitting down. Tall tales are retold, recollections sharpened in delighting over previous and newer glories; nonetheless far these stretch, everybody right here is aware of what it has taken to convey their membership to the hardly fathomable territory of a Europa League semi-final.
The raconteur in chief is Jacob Klette, a pointy determine in his late 70s who made virtually 400 appearances for a crew that broke boundaries. “The northern a part of Norway has all the time needed to struggle for its rights,” Klette says. “I performed for Lyn, the perfect crew in Oslo, within the late Nineteen Sixties. You’d open the newspaper and see adverts: ‘We have now an house for hire, however not for folks from the north.’ You felt disgusted to see it.”
Klette and lots of of his associates on the desk would flip conference and outright prejudice on their head. Golf equipment from all the way in which up right here, 75 miles contained in the Arctic circle, weren’t allowed to play within the Norwegian cup till 1963. They have been considered poor relations on and off the pitch.
Way more right here:
They definitely appear to be a really cheerful bunch. Bonus factors for the crew carrying equally cheerful colors. Bodo/Glimt ought to be given a bonus aim for engendering scenes like this.
Lucas Bergvall has twisted an ankle and is out of the sport. Richarlison and Dominic Solanke begin a recreation collectively for the primary time ever.
The groups!
Glenn Hoddle says he’s “excited” and thinks Spurs ought to “put the tie to mattress” this night. Have Spurs named the crew to do it? Let’s discover out!
Tottenham Hotspur: Vicario, Porro, Romero, Van de Ven, Udogie, Bentancur, Bissouma, Maddison, Johnson, Solanke, Richarlison. Subs: Austin, Whiteman, Danso, Tel, Grey, Kulusevski, Spence, Odobert, Sarr, Davies, Moore.
Bodo/Glimt: Haikin, Sjovold, Gundersen, Nielsen, Bjorkan, Fet, Hauge, Saltnes, Maatta, Hogh, Blomberg. Subs: Lund, Brondbo, Auklend, Moe, Sorli, Bro Hansen, Kjaer, Bjortuft.
Referee: Jose Maria Sanchez (Spain).
Whats up world!
The miracle of Bodo/Glimt may turn out to be the story of the 2024-25 season in European competitors (nicely, that and a few 17-year-old in Spain). It’s only a marvelous, splendid factor, brilliant, luminous and warming as town’s summer season solar (which from the final day of this month till 13 July received’t trouble setting in any respect; on the different finish of the size on 20 December it is because of rise at 11.35am and set once more 49 minutes later. Admittedly calling it warming is perhaps going a bit far – temperatures usually dip into single digits most days even in excessive summer season).
The inhabitants of Bodo is round 55,000, and the Guardian has dispatched Nick Ames to the city (extra from him shortly), maybe to see if he can discover anybody but to be interviewed in regards to the membership’s latest success. It’s probably transformative: Within the build-up to this recreation the Reuters information company spoke Troels Sandreid, who runs the airport in Bodo, to see what sort of affect it was having on customer numbers. “Bodo/Glimt‘s journey in Europe has undoubtedly helped improve curiosity in Bodo, together with visitors to and from the airport,” he mentioned. “Avinor [the company that runs the airport] has seen a gradual rise in passenger numbers at Bodo Airport lately. Though it’s tough to isolate the trigger, it’s pure to think about that Bodo/Glimt‘s success is a contributing issue.”
Effectively, that and the actual fact it takes 17 hours to drive there from the closest huge metropolis, I think about.
That is what Bodo appears to be like like. Frankly it appears to be like magnificent, although I admire this was taken on day. I like that it has points of interest such because the Bodøsjøen Friluftsmuseum, whose title suggests there’s such a extreme native scarcity of areas that generally three or 4 phrases are having to share every one.
Inevitably, provided that the city is dwelling to the Norsk Luftfartsmuseum (the nationwide museum of aviation), a former pilot had a big hand in Bodo/Glimt’s emergence. Right here’s the Related Press:
How did an unheralded Norwegian crew from a tiny city north of the Arctic Circle turn out to be one of many fairy-tale tales of European soccer?
For Bodø/Glimt, the transformation has been underpinned by a fighter pilot who developed psychological methods for his squadron earlier than bombing missions in Libya.
Bjørn Mannsverk found a gaggle of gamers exuding destructive power and liable to “a collective psychological breakdown” when he was requested in early 2017 to affix the backroom employees of a crew that had simply been relegated to Norway’s second tier.
His job as “psychological coach” at Bodø/Glimt? To make gamers speak overtly about their emotions, decrease stress ranges, change their attitudes and routines about issues like preparation and vitamin, and take away the stigma round psychological coaching.
Successful or dropping not mattered. It was all about following a philosophy and tradition established by Mannsverk, a former Royal Norwegian air power squadron chief whose army duties took him to Afghanistan after the 9/11 assaults and to Libya for a NATO-led intervention in 2011.
The outcomes have been extraordinary.
After securing a right away return to Norway’s prime division, the crew — based mostly greater than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) north of Oslo in a fishing city, Bodø, with a inhabitants of round 55,000 — has captured 4 of the nation’s final 5 league titles.
An energetic air power pilot for greater than 20 years, Mannsverk and others in his squadron have been the topics of a psychological coaching mission in 2010 the place the main focus was on meditation and “daily repeating boring stuff, however with 100% consideration.”
It meant that when he was in Libya the next 12 months, he had the psychological capability to deal with the damaging missions he was requested to carry out. His squadron’s mantra — “prepare as you propose to struggle” — labored.
“Despite the fact that I obtained robust emotions when my first bombs hit the goal and it was in infernal flames and fragments and every little thing,” he mentioned, “it was like, ’My coaching mentioned that it’s OK, that is taking place, acknowledge that, however know I’ve to return and do my job.’”
With Bodø till lately having a NATO air base, it was merely a cheerful coincidence that Bodø/Glimt’s management got here throughout members of the squadron concurrently it was in search of a “silver bullet” — as Mannsverk put it — to enhance the crew’s psychological conditioning.
A mission was born and absolutely embraced by supervisor Kjetil Knutsen following his appointment in 2018.
Bodø/Glimt has by no means regarded again.