Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Manasse Kusu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Successful dribbles: 19. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Samuel Wikman was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.11. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Gustav Ekdal, on a 2‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Giuseppe Bovalina is on it.
Position 2, 19 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 10 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Andreas Troelsen and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
19 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Orebro training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Manasse Kusu is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Orebro this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Kalle Holmberg provided it, and the 9.01 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
7.96, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Molde keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Manasse Kusu falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Oscar Igličar Berntsson has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Orebro have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Andreas Troelsen and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 4‑1, Gustav Ekdal could afford to be generous.
IK Sirius go through and Orebro go home, 1‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 13 arrived, 1 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Samuel Tammivuori has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Orebro have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. IK Sirius have kept their man, and Orebro go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Successful dribbles: 19. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Andreas Troelsen has, at Orebro, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Up for the corner, and Jacob Ortmark delivers — 7.66
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Jacob Ortmark scored, was marked 7.66, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
The deal with DC United is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Max Watson was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Orebro training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Manasse Kusu is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Erik Kulusevski is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Alexander Claesson has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.