Mighty thanks to Michael Palin, Rosenborg recovering?
The Norwegian ‘heavyweights’ had won a massive total of three European ties (KR Reykjavik, IFK Helsinki, Linfield) after first trying their hand in Europe in 1965 before the former Python introduced us to their boozy fans in 1992’s Pole to Pole.
The club were a typical regional Norwegian club, more centred on providing a community service while flogging off the odd talent to bigger leagues in Europe. When schoolteacher, and former player and coach, Nils Arne Eggen returned to the club in 1988 his implementation of fitness regimes from Norway’s hugely successful winter sports program and increased funding saw the club match up with Europe’s best.
Fitness, pace, attacking verve and hoovering up local talent let Eggen add 12 leagues to his 1971 outlier, plus when he returned in 2010 he bagged another. Winning ties against Luxembourg sides in 1993 and 1994 were the last times the provincial side were held back in Europe. In July 2000, I was in Tolka Park to see them ease past Shels 3-1, with Irish media telling us all – “this is what can be achieved if we invest and bla bla bla”.
Four years later, I was in Tolka when Shels beat the Croatian club I was working with and come within a round of the Champions League Group Stage. Irish media said – “we’re so close, we need more money and bla bla bla”. Then Shels went bust, owing millions. Likewise, Rosenborg fell from ‘journo’ grace while a better story turned up in the most unexpected of places.
It’s a long way from the top, if you’re BATE Borisov
I’ve been witness to the Belarusian club’s ascent and descent. I’ve written about it here and here. So it was a more than a bit poignant when I sat in the National Stadium in Minsk on Saturday to see just how far the club have fallen. Like Rosenborg, they were absolutely dominant at home, winning 13 titles in a row while enjoying 6 UEFA Champions League Group Stages and 4 UEFA Europa League Group Stages. They are as close to that level now as Shelbourne were three seasons ago.
On Saturday Sierra Leone-born, Belgium youth international Ibrahim Kargbo Jr came on and helped his side pull a goal back, but the collection of wandering West Africans and sub-standard locals pale in comparison to the players who once wore the yellow-blue like Alexander Hleb, Bressan, the Baga boys or Vitali Kutuzov. Like Rosenborg, they are also too hot to handle now for hacks who once held them up as models of how to run a club and punch above your weight.
A glimpse of Bodø – blink and you’ll miss ’em?
First ever Norwegian men’s team to reach a UEFA competition semi-final (two of the nation’s women’s teams have already reached that plinth), FK Bodø/Glimt are being inundated with praise after dumping Lazio out this season. The club, who’d won a sum total of 7 ties in European competition since their debut in 1976, fell into the UEFA Conference League in 2021 and ran all the way to the quarters before losing to eventual champs – Jose Mourinho’s Roma. This was in year two of their four-in-a-row of domestic triumphs.
Europa and Conference Group stages were reached between then and this season, with head coach Kjetil Knutsen tapping into the knowledge of the Olympic sports program to ensure that his charges are tip top every time. And yet, there are some in Norwegian sports who believe they are witnessing another bubble which will burst sooner than Rosenborg’s.
You want to believe this is a tide to lift all clubs and yes, all clubs. It didn’t before, which makes me feel, or at least fear, that Glimt are flash in the pan.
Failing football, one season at a time
Make the group stage, sure then it’ll be grand. Dundalk FC believed in that. Shamrock Rovers FC believed that, but are build on more solid ground. The inequity within European football, with big clubs gobbling up the goodies and minnows grateful for leftovers to nibble, has never been as damaging as it is now. To defeat the Super League breakaway, UEFA caved to the big boys and in doing so created a self-defeating cycle of quick fixes to keep control. We delight in our local clubs picking up pittances (in global terms) by good shows in the Conference League, or even the Europa League. But, up in the Champions League Groups, even a sustained run doesn’t cover the losses the small market nation’s clubs swallow in order to be unsustainable.
In summer 2014, I met with the backer of a newly promoted Maltest Premier League team, Zebbug Rangers. He was putting money into the club to not just stay in the top flight, they’d just been promoted, but to chase a place in Europe. He’d met me four years before and said that his project would be more stable than the circus I suffered at Floriana. A multimillionaire, he was wanted to win quick and be a Group Stage player by 2016. Our second meeting in Budapest was enlightening and he accepted my refusal gracefully. They went down right away and have popped up again, once, since. This year he’s pulled his cash from the club – over a decade after pumping in a reported €7 million.
And therein lies the crux. By appeasing the ‘big clubs’, UEFA (and FIFA) have continued damning the rest of the game to a future of financial inequality, boom-bust cycles and hopeless administration. We can wrap ourselves in cutesy media coverage of plucky Norwegians using hyper-modern methods and buying local to stick it to the top guns, but do we really want to see Shelbourne play Dinamo Minsk in the Puskas Arena next May 30? Not a hope in hell, because we’ve been trained to accept that only the best action comes from certain leagues, specific teams and we should tune in without fail.
There is only trickle down of money in football insofar as it elevates one outfit for a few seasons before they go bang. There is only upward movement that spouts money into the coffers of agents and their circles. There is only victory for the very, very few, not the many. Once we accept that, we can get back to enjoying watching the game.
ah, Rosenborg’s boozy supporters on Pole to Pole – for a glimpse of how fans were perceived back in 1991, just look at how Michael Palin (a football follower himself) introduces them – gestures over his shoulder towards them and says “football supporters” before grimacing.
How different it is now.
Incidentally, sorry to spoil the magic, but Michael Palin travelled from the North Pole to Tromso (via Greenland, which isn’t shown for some reason) in May, then flew home, where he rested for a couple of months, before recommencing the “journey” in July – the exact date he returns to Tromso can be pinpointed by looking up the Tromso vs Rosenborg fixtures from 1991. I really should get a life!
as for the football discussed in this article, I’m personally amazed some of the smaller leagues haven’t resigned from UEFA and formed their own Champions competition, but I guess there’s too much money and exposure to be had from feeding off the scraps of the big leagues.
The new competition format’s organisers will claim that these surprise packages are thanks to 24 of 34 teams going through to the knockout stages, which begs the question of why it can’t just be a knockout competition from the beginning like it used to.
They’ll no doubt counter that the guaranteed income from the eight group games will help the smaller clubs develop in the long run, so this new format is the best of both worlds in terms of the economic benefits of the group stage combined with the excitement and unpredictability of an expanded knockout format.
Time will tell if that will prove to be the case.