The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at HamKam is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Sakarias Opsahl 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Martin Gjone was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. HamKam know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at HamKam, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Alem Omerinović’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
The end came on a Tuesday, as these things usually do: a short meeting, a shorter statement, and Interim Coach clearing his office by noon. Football’s cruellest ritual, performed to schedule.
Not an interim appointment — an institution with an empty coaching office. Somebody unfamiliar will run the sessions this week, and the question of how a club gets into this state is one the board will be asked and will not answer.
“I am not thinking past Saturday, and I would advise nobody else to.” The caretaker’s first rule is to pretend the job is small; Interim Coach recited it perfectly.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around HamKam they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Sakarias Opsahl 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 bill for the sacking has arrived. Interim Coach leaves with $41.4K for the time left on his deal, and that money buys the club nothing it can put on the pitch.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. HamKam told Lucca Brughmans something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” HamKam have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at HamKam is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Sakarias Opsahl and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad18 Nov 2030
Martin Gjone 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.
Something was said to Alan Cole and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Joel Mvuka signs something — a contract at HamKam or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
14 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. HamKam lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around HamKam they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Sakarias Opsahl 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.
Squad4 Nov 2030
Martin Gjone 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.
“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 HamKam know it.
The club looked outside for a month, found nothing it preferred, and handed the job to the man who had been doing it anyway. He knows the building; now he has to prove he knows the rest.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around HamKam they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at HamKam this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Squad7 Oct 2030
Words at HamKam training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Martin Gjone 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 demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Henrik Udahl is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Halvor Opsahl is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
“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 HamKam, and it is not being withdrawn.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at HamKam heard it as anything else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at HamKam this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
8 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at HamKam can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Squad9 Sep 2030
Mustapha Abu 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.
In brief
The dugoutA fresh start for Mikkel Ceïde under the new man
0‑3 to Bodo/Glimt, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around HamKam people have started saying his name in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at HamKam this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
HamKam asked and Viking said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around HamKam people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Sandefjord is saying, and nobody at HamKam is enjoying the guessing.
$1.0M on the table at Sandefjord. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
$1.2M was the most the club would pay and Valerenga 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.
Sakarias Opsahl 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.
21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. HamKam lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Sakarias Opsahl 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Martin Gjone was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 Jun 2030
The manager has not finished forgetting Sakarias Opsahl'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.
The dugout24 Jun 2030
the manager faces the questions
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” the manager after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
In brief
The dugoutHenrik Udahl knocks on the manager's door
28 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. HamKam lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around HamKam they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at HamKam this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Eirik Wichne has his answer from HamKam; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout17 Jun 2030
the manager faces the questions
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” the manager after 0‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
13 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 35 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. HamKam will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Squad10 Jun 2030
Words at HamKam training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Martin Gjone 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.
Ethan Amundsen-Day 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.
Sarpsborg 08 left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout10 Jun 2030
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 the manager to a room that had heard them before.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 31 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
7.61, 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at HamKam this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Nothing resets a career like somebody arriving who did not pick the side last season. Juho Lähteenmäki has taken the hint, and HamKam are getting a version of him the previous regime had stopped seeing.
Sakarias Opsahl and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad31 Dec 2029
Martin Gjone 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at HamKam can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
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.
7 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee HamKam could ask drops and the wages Eirik Wichne can ask rise.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at HamKam the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. HamKam had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at HamKam is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Martin Gjone commits to HamKam for another 4 years.
Squad26 Nov 2029
Words at HamKam training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Martin Gjone 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.
Eirik Wichne 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.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mats Trige trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Henrik Udahl signs something — a contract at HamKam or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and HamKam have no good answer.
Sakarias Opsahl and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad5 Nov 2029
Words at HamKam training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Martin Gjone 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.
“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 HamKam know it.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Henrik Udahl.
“I watch every HamKam game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Kongsvinger runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Kongsvinger have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Leon Hovland 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.
Squad15 Oct 2029
Words at Kongsvinger training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jonas Torsvik 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 manager has a list and the board has a condition attached to it. That is not a crisis — half of football works this way — but it decides which of the two of them gets his way in August.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
Aalesund next, and one man in the Kongsvinger dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
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.
Successful dribbles: 25. 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Kongsvinger is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Andreas Dybevik 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 17 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what HamKam can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Halvor Opsahl was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I watch every HamKam game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Kongsvinger runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
5 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Molde in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Kongsvinger they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Stjepan Pavišić has agreed terms with Mjondalen for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Andreas Dybevik 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.
Squad10 Sep 2029
Jonas Torsvik 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.
Nobody has barred the club from spending; it simply has nothing to spend that it has not first raised. Every incoming name comes with an outgoing one attached.
The dugout10 Sep 2029
Leon Parker 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.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Kongsvinger will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Kongsvinger know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
The dugoutMusa Dubois asks for a word with the manager
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Kongsvinger lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Maryus Lefevre will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Kongsvinger the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Andreas Dybevik 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Odd have kept their man, and Kongsvinger go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“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.
Squad6 Aug 2029
Words at Kongsvinger training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sebastian Haugland 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.
At 37, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
27 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. HamKam lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around HamKam people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The offer from Sarpsborg 08 for Aksel Potur was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what HamKam can pretend not to have heard.
Sakarias Opsahl 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.
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. HamKam lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around HamKam people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Player ratings23 Jul 2029
Elion Krosa, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.01
A mark of 8.01 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
HamKam have gone to Viking with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.3M — a club that wants Mikkel Ceïde enough to be asked twice.
Sakarias Opsahl 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.
$160.0K on the table at Bryne. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Add another name to the list: Sarpsborg 08 have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Aksel Potur. The answer from HamKam has not changed — yet.
44 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. HamKam lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what HamKam can pretend not to have heard.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Aksel Potur 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.
19 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
51 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. HamKam lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” HamKam have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Mats Trige 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.
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.
At 23 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.
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.