The kamikaze vikings from the North Pole
Bodø Glimt took the League by storm and imposed a new philosophy in Norwegian football
In late September, when Bodø Glimt made Milan suffer in the San Siro before beating them 3-2 in a Europa League preliminary round, the thrill was attributed to the presumed lack of quality of this Milan side. Three months later, we know it wasn’t so. The “Rossoneri” are top of the Italian Série A and Glimt broke every record there was to beat in Norwegian football on the way to a much acclaimed first League won by a team playing North of the Arctic Polar circle. Most points, most goals scored, most wins, biggest winning margin… You name it. Everything fell onto the lap of this so-called “elevator team”, a club that had to fight prejudice against northerners.
“The San Siro game was the only one I have ever re-watched. We outplayed Milan in the last 15 minutes. It was pretty shocking to see them on their knees”, Orjan Berg told The National recently. Orjan, member of the second generation of the Berg dynasty that has marked Glimt since the seventies, is one of the sons of Harald Berg, club hero that was there for the first Norwegian Cup win, in 1975, and father of Patrick Berg, star midfielder in the current squad and on his way to become a Norwegian international. He also coaches one of the Glimt youth teams, the basis for the club’s success. It couldn’t be otherwise, considering the distances and the small budgets involved in local football. Bodø is a small town around 1200 kms away from Oslo. It takes a 16 hour drive – or at least two flights until the local NATO run airport – to get there. The nearest neighbour Glimt had competing in this season’s Eliteserien was Rosenborg, as Trondheim is “only” nine and a half hours (700km) away to the south. You could even think of Bodø as The Wall in Game of Thrones, were it not for the fact that Tromsø IL got promoted to next year’s Eliteserien – and Tromsø is even eight hours (530kms) farther to the North. 2021 will be a strange year for Norwegian football.
A hardly earned promotion
The peculiar geography of Norway and a lot of prejudice in southerners minds even prevented teams such as Glimt to compete in the country’s top division until the seventies or to play the Norwegian Cup prior to the sixties. “We were bullied”, considers Orjan Berg, revealing that in Oslo you can find adds for apartment rentals that exclude northerners. “They thought that we were only farmers or fishermen. And some still think that”, he adds. The fact is that, until the seventies, teams from the North were not even allowed in Division 1, either due to lack of footballing ability or to long distances, making it so hard for opponents to travel. Mjølner, a team from Narvik, named after Thor’s hammer, was the first to be allowed promotion, in 1971, but was again relegated in 1972, as they ended bottom of the League. That seemed to justify the difficulties the Norwegian FA caused to Northern teams: the second tier was divided into three groups, the winners of the two in the South being granted immediate promotion, while the winner of the group in the North still had to win a play-off against the second placed teams in the other groups.
That’s why when Bodø Glimt won the Norwegian Cup, in 1975, they were still in the second division. The team won their group both in 1974 and 1975, conceding no defeats and only three draws in the process, but always tripped in the play-offs. Even after beating Vard 2-0 in the 1975 Cup final, they were again submitted to that humiliating new challenge in 1976: once again, Glimt won the Northern Group – one draw and no losses – but this time they beat Lyn Oslo and Odd to gain the right to be the second Northern team admitted in the top-flight. And what a show they pulled: on their first season, Glimt finished second and reached the Cup final, losing both races to Lillestrøm. Since those times, they have been up and down, hence gaining a reputation as an “elevator team”. Relegated in 1980, Glimt were even in the third tier during most of the eighties, regaining promotion in 1992. The next season ended with them winning their second Norwegian Cup, beating Strømsgodset 2-0 in the final. In the team that day was Runar Berg, another son of Harald Berg, hence brother of Orjan Berg, who returned from Switzerland the next year to form a treble of Berg brothers in the squad, as then there was also the recently deceased Arlid Berg.
A pilot and a coach
Relegated in 2005, promoted in 2007, relegated again in 2009, promoted once more in 2013, Glimt played and lost two other cup finals in 1996 and 2003. The 15th place finish in 2016 meant they were to go down again and the giant yellow toothbrushes that local fans take to the stadium since the seventies were not to be seen in top games. But that’s when the table turned. First responsible was Bjorn Mannsverk, a former fighter jet pilot in Afghanistan the club hired as mental coach. By promoting several individual and group sessions, Mannsverk, who was not even a football fan and said the game bored him, improved the team and thought players to focus on performance other than in results. Some habits changed. For instance: when Glimt concedes a goal, the players come together to talk it through. “Not every time. But if they need to, they do it. This is quite rare, I think”, Mannsverk told The New York Times.
Second responsible: Kjetil Knutsen, the then 49 years old Glimt named as coach in 2018, after regaining access to the Eliteserien. Knutsen had no experience whatsoever in the top division in Norway, having previously trained Hovding, Fyllingsdallen and Åsane before joining the club as assistant to coach Aasmund Bjørkan. After the promotion, Bjørkan became sports director and Knutsen took the coaching role, focusing totally on team-building, on perfecting tactics and on developing local talents. “We aim to have 40 percent of the squad from Northern Norway”, Orjan Berg explains. And that is only possible due to the close relationship the coach keeps with the players and the close to perfect understanding and execution these apply to the club’s “kamikaze” 4x3x3, a system applied with high pressing and even higher tempo. At Glimt, everything is integrated, so that the team can resist the exit of its better players every time the transfer market opens. The first season back at the Eliteserien was tough and ended with a low 11th place finish. For the second, in 2019, Glimt led the table until mid-August, finally conceding to the best arguments of Molde, who were crowned champions, and ending in second place. It sure helped that Tunisian winger Amor Layouni left for the Pyramids, in Egypt, in September, for a transfer fee of 1,5 million euros.
In January, Knutsen also lost Brazilian goalkeeper Ricardo Friedrich to Ankaragücü, in Turkey, on a free transfer, and top-ace midfielder Hakon Evjen, to AZ Alkmaar, in the Netherlands, for 2,5 million euros. In September, after the Europa League upset menace at San Siro, Milan kept young winger Jens Petter Hauge, author of two assists on the night, for five million euros. Even though, Glimt did not falter. Their attacking philosophy – some players call it “kamikaze”, laughing about it like some ancient Vikings would laugh from danger in face of Valhalla – allowed them to take the League by storm. Kasper Junker, a Danish striker signed from AC Horsens, for 600 thousand euros, was top goalscorer, with 27 goals to his name. Danish winger Phillip Zinckernagel was top of the League for assists (18 goal passes) as well as third top scorer (19 goals) and already left for Watford FC, in England. Others will no doubt follow, as the feats of Bodø Glimt travelled around Europe and player’s reputations will precede them.
Records, records, records
Knutsen’s team lost only twice in the whole season: apart from that game with Milan, they were beaten (4-2) by Molde in mid-October, when that did not already matter much, as they were 18 points ahead, with only ten games to play. In the end, Glimt broke the records for most goals scored in the League (103, opposed to Rosenborg’s 87, in 1997), most wins (26, opposed to Molde’s 22 in 2014), most points (81, opposed to Molde’s 71 in 2014) and biggest margin to the second placed team (19 points, opposed to Rosenborg’s 15 in 1995). That sure worths a long trip to the North.