Key occasions
1 min: Peeeeeeep! The guests get the ball rolling.
Right, preambles virtually finished. But ahead of kick-off, a length of mirrored image for Pope Francis, no longer completely seen.
“If any Spurs fans are thinking of heading to north Norway to sample the atmosphere for the second leg (I assume tickets are long gone), I can confirm that the (12-hour) train journey north from Bergen is absolutely stunning, the highlight of an interrail trip to the arctic circle last year,” writes Stuart Jenkinson, because the referee orchestrates the pre-match coin toss. “Every other house/ apartment was sporting a Bodo/glimt flag, as was the local peak, but unfortunately no home games in the short time we were there.”
The avid gamers have joined them, they usually’re on their method out! One finish of the bottom is exhibiting the Spurs membership motto by way of keeping up black and white plastic sheeting. Flags wave in every single place. One nook could be very, very yellow.
Four mins to kick-off. The mascots are within the tunnel, looking ahead to the avid gamers to sign up for them.
Ange Postecoglou has a talk:
I simply suppose the steadiness of our midfield and what we’re going through up towards. The wonderful thing about Lucas, he was once the purchase who gave us excellent steadiness in there. Tonight Biss [Yves Bissouma] will give us what we want. I believe we want to be competitive this night. Richie [Richarlison] has been operating his as far back as health. I believe this night his revel in, his talent in and across the field, we need to put numerous drive on them, and he may lend a hand us fairly slightly.
We outwork each and every group, that’s going to be necessary this night. After that it’s self-discipline and organisation to verify our soccer will get us via. We realize it’s going to be a difficult sport, we’ve were given to verify we play our soccer.
“I dunno if anyone has mentioned this, but during a lovely train ride from Liverpool St this afternoon, in a carriage packed with jolly singing Bodø/Glimt fans, I asked one of them where their name comes from,” writes Tom Paternoster-Howe. “Apparently ‘glimt’ means ‘glint’ in English. Seems like a delightful name for a delightful club.”
They have been at the start named merely Glimt, ahead of including Bodo to keep away from confusion. According to the Cambridge Dictionary glimt can imply “glimpse”, as within the word “skimte så vidt”, “to catch a glimpse of something” or it might imply “sparkle”, as within the word “være sjarmerende og humoristisk”, to have a sparkle in a single’s eye. They are to all intents and functions referred to as Flash.
Here’s Nick Ames’ record from Bodø at the “big dream” coming true for the Norwegian facet:
No one is bound exactly when the “coffee table” custom started, however consensus strains it again about 60 years. It would take so much for probably the most regulars to not display up. The time is sort of 11am and cups are being specified by the Aspmyra Stadion canteen for the Bodø/Glimt outdated boys’ day-to-day catchup. In walks Ivar Bakke, who can rely himself as the gang’s elder statesman at 94. “One of the oldest people in Norway!” he laughs ahead of sitting down. Tall stories are retold, reminiscences sharpened in delighting over previous and more moderen glories; then again a ways the ones stretch, everybody right here is aware of what it has taken to carry their membership to the hardly fathomable territory of a Europa League semi-final.
The raconteur in leader is Jacob Klette, a pointy determine in his past due 70s who made virtually 400 appearances for a group that broke barriers. “The northern part of Norway has always had to fight for its rights,” Klette says. “I played for Lyn, the best team in Oslo, in the late 1960s. You would open the newspaper and see adverts: ‘We have an apartment for rent, but not for people from the north.’ You felt disgusted to see it.”
Klette and lots of of his pals on the desk would flip conference and outright prejudice on their head. Clubs from all of the method up right here, 75 miles within the Arctic circle, weren’t allowed to play within the Norwegian cup till 1963. They have been thought to be deficient members of the family off and on the pitch.
Much extra right here:
They indisputably appear to be an overly cheerful bunch. Bonus issues for the group dressed in similarly cheerful colors. Bodo/Glimt must be given an advantage function for engendering scenes like this.
Lucas Bergvall has twisted an ankle and is out of the sport. Richarlison and Dominic Solanke get started a sport in combination for the primary time ever.
The groups!
Glenn Hoddle says he’s “excited” and thinks Spurs must “put the tie to bed” this night time. Have Spurs named the group to do it? Let’s in finding out!
Tottenham Hotspur: Vicario, Porro, Romero, Van de Ven, Udogie, Bentancur, Bissouma, Maddison, Johnson, Solanke, Richarlison. Subs: Austin, Whiteman, Danso, Tel, Gray, 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).
Hello global!
The miracle of Bodo/Glimt would possibly turn into the tale of the 2024-25 season in European festival (neatly, that and a few 17-year-old in Spain). It’s only a marvelous, perfect factor, vibrant, luminous and warming as town’s summer season solar (which from the remaining day of this month till 13 July gained’t hassle surroundings in any respect; on the different finish of the size on 20 December it’s because of upward push at 11.35am and set once more 49 mins later. Admittedly calling it warming could be going slightly a ways – temperatures in most cases dip into unmarried digits maximum days even in prime summer season).
The inhabitants of Bodo is round 55,000, and the Guardian has dispatched Nick Ames to the city (extra from him in a while), most likely to look if he can in finding any individual but to be interviewed concerning the membership’s contemporary luck. It is probably transformative: In the build-up to this sport the Reuters information company spoke Troels Sandreid, who runs the airport in Bodo, to look what sort of affect it was once having on customer numbers. “Bodo/Glimt‘s journey in Europe has undoubtedly helped increase interest in Bodo, including traffic to and from the airport,” he said. “Avinor [the company that runs the airport] has seen a steady rise in passenger numbers at Bodo Airport in recent years. Although it’s tough to isolate the purpose, it’s herbal to consider that Bodo/Glimt‘s success is a contributing factor.”
Well, that and the fact it takes 17 hours to drive there from the nearest big city, I imagine.
This is what Bodo looks like. Frankly it looks magnificent, though I appreciate this was taken on a good day. I like that it has attractions such as the Bodøsjøen Friluftsmuseum, whose name suggests there is such a severe local shortage of spaces that sometimes three or four words are having to share each one.
Inevitably, given that the town is home to the Norsk Luftfartsmuseum (the national museum of aviation), a former pilot had a significant hand in Bodo/Glimt’s emergence. Here’s the Associated Press:
How did an unheralded Norwegian group from a tiny the town north of the Arctic Circle turn into probably the most fairy-tale tales of European football?
For Bodø/Glimt, the transformation has been underpinned by means of a fighter pilot who advanced psychological tactics for his squadron ahead of bombing missions in Libya.
Bjørn Mannsverk found out a gaggle of avid gamers exuding unfavorable power and liable to “a collective mental breakdown” when he was once requested in early 2017 to sign up for the backroom group of workers of a group that had simply been relegated to Norway’s 2d tier.
His process as “mental coach” at Bodø/Glimt? To make avid gamers communicate brazenly about their emotions, decrease rigidity ranges, alternate their attitudes and routines about such things as preparation and diet, and take away the stigma round psychological coaching.
Winning or dropping not mattered. It was once all about following a philosophy and tradition established by means of Mannsverk, a former Royal Norwegian air drive squadron chief whose army tasks took him to Afghanistan after the 9/11 assaults and to Libya for a NATO-led intervention in 2011.
The effects had been atypical.
After securing a right away go back to Norway’s best department, the group — primarily based greater than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) north of Oslo in a fishing the town, Bodø, with a inhabitants of round 55,000 — has captured 4 of the rustic’s remaining 5 league titles.
An energetic air drive pilot for greater than 20 years, Mannsverk and others in his squadron have been the topics of a psychological coaching undertaking in 2010 the place the focal point was once on meditation and “every day repeating boring stuff, but with 100% attention.”
It intended that after he was once in Libya the next yr, he had the psychological capability to maintain the damaging missions he was once requested to accomplish. His squadron’s mantra — “train as you intend to fight” — labored.
“Even though I got strong feelings when my first bombs hit the target and it was in infernal flames and fragments and everything,” he mentioned, “it was like, ’My training said that it’s OK, this is happening, recognize that, but know I have to return and do my job.’”
With Bodø till just lately having a NATO air base, it was once merely a contented twist of fate that Bodø/Glimt’s management got here throughout individuals of the squadron similtaneously it was once in quest of a “silver bullet” — as Mannsverk put it — to strengthen the group’s psychological conditioning.
A undertaking was once born and completely embraced by means of supervisor Kjetil Knutsen following his appointment in 2018.
Bodø/Glimt hasn’t ever appeared again.