Marked for Konstantin Nikitenko
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
The dugout30 Oct 2034
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Valerenga may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Match28 Oct 2034
The run at home goes on for Valerenga
11 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Market30 Oct 2034
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Konstantin Nikitenko will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Valerenga the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad30 Oct 2034
Garang Kuol 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.
Market30 Oct 2034
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad30 Oct 2034
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Elliot Myles and Valerenga agree another 4 years.
Match28 Oct 2034
Three points for Valerenga, 1‑0 the final word against Viking in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad30 Oct 2034
Lucas Batbedat 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 ratings30 Oct 2034
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match27 Sep 2034
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Niklas Fuglestad obliged against Molde. 2‑1 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Valerenga.
Player ratings2 Oct 2034
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.88, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings2 Oct 2034
Two goals and a mark of 8.53 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The dugout2 Oct 2034
Jens Sorloth: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Valerenga have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market2 Oct 2034
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Valerenga is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market2 Oct 2034
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Match30 Sep 2034
Valerenga make home a hard place to visit
9 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Match30 Sep 2034
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Kelvin John. 2‑0 against Bryne, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad2 Oct 2034
A row about effort at Valerenga
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and William Osnes-Ringen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market4 Sep 2034
The Brann deal is off
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Matteo Kitz reports back to Valerenga with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Market4 Sep 2034
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market4 Sep 2034
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Valerenga is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad4 Sep 2034
Garang Kuol 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.
Market4 Sep 2034
The phone has started ringing about Balázs Tóth again, and this time the name on the line is AC Horsens. Valerenga are listening politely and promising nothing.
Match2 Sep 2034
Brann left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad4 Sep 2034
A row about effort at Valerenga
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and William Osnes-Ringen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout4 Sep 2034
The manager makes an example of Lucas Batbedat
“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.
Squad4 Sep 2034
Erik Botheim is no longer first choice
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Erik Botheim has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match22 Jul 2034
Bragging rights belong to Valerenga for another year after a 2‑1 win over Lillestrom in front of a full house.
Market24 Jul 2034
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Valerenga have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Market24 Jul 2034
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
The dugout24 Jul 2034
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Player ratings24 Jul 2034
Beat anybody else and it is three points. Beat them, with his name on it, and it is a year of bragging rights for Valerenga and a story that will outlast his contract.
Transfer targets24 Jul 2034
The deal with KFUM Oslo 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.
Market24 Jul 2034
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Valerenga they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Boardroom24 Jul 2034
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Konstantin Nikitenko has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Market24 Jul 2034
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match13 Feb 2034
Valerenga are in among the leaders
Position 2 and 66 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Market13 Feb 2034
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Aalesund waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Valerenga is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market13 Feb 2034
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Valerenga can pretend not to have heard.
Market13 Feb 2034
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad13 Feb 2034
Artem Slesar in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valerenga this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Feb 2034
Žan Žabkar arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Žan Žabkar has, at Valerenga, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Market13 Feb 2034
Seb Palmer-Houlden has left for Brann in a $200.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Transfer targets13 Feb 2034
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad13 Feb 2034
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Valerenga can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market14 Nov 2033
Only the photograph left for Tiago Andrade
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Tiago Andrade will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Valerenga the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad14 Nov 2033
Erik Botheim in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Valerenga this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Nov 2033
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Valerenga know it.
Squad14 Nov 2033
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Konstantin Nikitenko has just signed for Valerenga, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad14 Nov 2033
A row about effort at Valerenga
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alwande Roaldsøy was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Looking ahead14 Nov 2033
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
Market14 Nov 2033
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Valerenga, another week without a signature from Artem Slesar.
Market14 Nov 2033
Luis Milla told to find a new club
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Luis Milla has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Valerenga.
The dugout14 Nov 2033
“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.