Marked for Deni Dashaev
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad14 Sep 2037
86 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Aalesund lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad14 Sep 2037
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 21 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings14 Sep 2037
At 39 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.23 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad14 Sep 2037
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Aalesund this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings14 Sep 2037
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad14 Sep 2037
Uba Charles 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2037
Ninety minutes of Deni Dashaev at his very best
Marked 9.14. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Aalesund.
Boardroom14 Sep 2037
Wages eat 122% of everything Aalesund earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Match12 Sep 2037
It needed Deni Dashaev to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Sandefjord, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad7 Sep 2037
93 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Aalesund lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad7 Sep 2037
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 28 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Boardroom7 Sep 2037
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Match5 Sep 2037
Aalesund win it in stoppage time
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 90th minute. Stabaek will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Boardroom7 Sep 2037
Crisis meeting at Aalesund
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Squad7 Sep 2037
Deni Dashaev has been here 10 seasons
331 appearances across 10 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Player ratings7 Sep 2037
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 25 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad7 Sep 2037
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Aalesund this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings7 Sep 2037
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad10 Aug 2037
121 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Aalesund lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad10 Aug 2037
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 56 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market10 Aug 2037
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Aalesund, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match8 Aug 2037
The wait goes on for Aalesund
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad10 Aug 2037
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Aalesund this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match8 Aug 2037
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Aalesund and Viking in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Boardroom10 Aug 2037
The numbers do not look good at Aalesund
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Squad10 Aug 2037
Matěj Radosta 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.
Player ratings10 Aug 2037
Ninety minutes of Lukas Gausdal at his very best
Marked 8.68. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Aalesund.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad27 Apr 2037
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 19 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings27 Apr 2037
A brace, and Thalissinho takes the afternoon — 8.82
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Thalissinho provided it, and the 8.82 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market27 Apr 2037
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Aalesund they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad27 Apr 2037
Kristoffer Klaesson 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.
Match25 Apr 2037
No end in sight to Aalesund's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Aalesund has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad27 Apr 2037
Lukas Gausdal 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.
Match25 Apr 2037
Viking left with the points after a 2‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad27 Apr 2037
The manager makes an example of Deni Dashaev
“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.
Player ratings27 Apr 2037
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.22, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings16 Jun 2036
Successful dribbles: 26. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad16 Jun 2036
Kristoffer Klaesson 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.
Boardroom16 Jun 2036
Aalesund counting the cost
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Aalesund now.
Match14 Jun 2036
Elias Myrlid scored, and precious little else went right: 2‑3 to Molde, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad16 Jun 2036
Uba Charles 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.
Squad16 Jun 2036
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Aalesund are dealing with a man who wants a different country.