119 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Aalesund lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Bjorn Thorsby after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
In brief
Looking aheadAalesund take on the side everybody is chasing
SquadA Aalesund teenager takes the young player award
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Elscha Furaha did not need any: 7.69, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
4 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Aalesund can pretend not to have heard.
Uba Charles 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 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.
“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 dugout24 May 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Kristoffer Nessø's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Two goals and a mark of 8.72 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
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.
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.
It finished 3‑1, and it was Elias Myrlid’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Aalesund.
Player ratings17 May 2027
Paul Ngongo was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.82. 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑1, Bjorn Thorsby could afford to be generous.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Elscha Furaha obliged against Viking. 1‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Aalesund.
Player ratings10 May 2027
A brace, and Elscha Furaha takes the afternoon — 9.00
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Elscha Furaha provided it, and the 9.00 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
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.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Aalesund and Stromsgodset in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Uba Charles 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 here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout19 Apr 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Bjorn Thorsby to a room that had heard them before.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Claes Kronberg was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“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.
Boardroom5 Apr 2027
Deadline passes with 5 signed and 5 gone
That is the business done at Aalesund until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Aalesund have done the hard part with Lillestrom, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bodo/Glimt have kept their man, and Aalesund go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.