Marked for Johan Solstad-Nøis
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match25 Oct 2027
Sandefjord refuse to drop out of the race
Position 3, 42 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.
Player ratings25 Oct 2027
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.91 for the rest of it.
The dugout25 Oct 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Sandefjord may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad25 Oct 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Xander Lambrix commits to Sandefjord for another 3 years.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Words at Sandefjord training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Noa Williams 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.
The terraces25 Oct 2027
At 21 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.
Match23 Oct 2027
A 1‑0 win over Åsane, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad25 Oct 2027
Jens Husebø 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.
The dugout25 Oct 2027
“That is what I want every week. Not the result, the way they went about it.” The manager, after 1‑0, already talking about the next one.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market15 Mar 2027
“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.
Market15 Mar 2027
The fee is $2.2M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Sarpsborg 08 drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Market15 Mar 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad15 Mar 2027
At 19 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.
Market15 Mar 2027
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Sandefjord hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Words at Sandefjord training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Zeno Van Den Bosch 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.
Squad15 Mar 2027
Too much change too quickly at Sandefjord
9 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Loan watch15 Mar 2027
“I did not go to HB Køge to sit and watch. I want to come back to Sandefjord and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 5 matches say the rest.
Transfer targets15 Mar 2027
Genoa have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom8 Mar 2027
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Vegard Bohinen has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Market8 Mar 2027
“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 Sandefjord, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market8 Mar 2027
HamKam pay $2.7M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Market8 Mar 2027
Business is business: Mathias Sauer goes
Bryne paid $1.3M and Sandefjord took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Elliot Lavlund is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“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; Sandefjord are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Zeno Van Den Bosch 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.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Morten Trøen commits to Sandefjord for another 4 years.
Market8 Mar 2027
Johan Solstad-Nøis is 19, and Sandefjord have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market8 Mar 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Transfer targets8 Mar 2027
The deal with Mjondalen died in the treatment room. Nobody will say what was found and everybody in the game will find out by Friday.
Market8 Mar 2027
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Heine Åsen Larsen reports back to Tromso with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Ruben Yttergård Jenssen and Tromso agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Market8 Mar 2027
The name of Sander Innvær has come up in conversations Tromso were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“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; Tromso are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Market8 Mar 2027
Johan Solstad-Nøis has left for Sandefjord in a $160.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Words at Tromso training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Leo Cornic 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.
Squad8 Mar 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tromso this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom1 Mar 2027
Pressure builds in the Sandefjord boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Market1 Mar 2027
“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 Sandefjord, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets1 Mar 2027
The clubs have shaken hands with Tromso; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Transfer targets1 Mar 2027
$890.0K was the most the club would pay and Molde were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Lamin Njie is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad1 Mar 2027
“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 Sandefjord know it.
Market1 Mar 2027
Add another name to the list: Moss have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Mathias Sauer. The answer from Sandefjord has not changed — yet.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Zeno Van Den Bosch 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.
Transfer targets1 Mar 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. PSV have kept their man, and Sandefjord go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market22 Feb 2027
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Tromso have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Market22 Feb 2027
“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 Tromso, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Tempers go at Tromso
Abderrahmane Sarr 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.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
Daniel Braut knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Daniel Braut trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market22 Feb 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Vegard Erlien’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Dec 2026
Tempers go at Tromso
Ruben Yttergård Jenssen 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Johan Solstad-Nøis is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
Leon Hien is still paying for one afternoon at Tromso
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ole Kristian Lauvli, and the manager let it.
Market28 Dec 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Vegard Erlien’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
Vince Osuji knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Vince Osuji trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Sep 2026
12 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Match26 Sep 2026
Nowhere to hide for Tromso
0‑5 against Rosenborg, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Squad28 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tromso this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Jakob Haugaard
“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.
Boardroom28 Sep 2026
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Stefan Henriksen after 0‑5, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Ten men and a goalkeeper behind him, and it still finished in the net. He knew before anybody told him, and nobody at Tromso needed to.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
Mathias Tønnessen is still being punished for one mistake
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.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Marked 7.93 at 18, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A falling-out at Tromso
Ruben Yttergård Jenssen and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Johan Solstad-Nøis is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The terraces21 Sep 2026
At 18 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.
Match19 Sep 2026
It finished 1‑0, and it was Johan Solstad-Nøis’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Tromso.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. 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.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“That is what I want every week. Not the result, the way they went about it.” The manager, after 1‑0, already talking about the next one.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.