Marked for Gabriel Oddvar Opsahl
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad20 Nov 2028
Henrik Skogvold and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout20 Nov 2028
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Squad20 Nov 2028
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 dugout20 Nov 2028
The manager makes an example of Ruben Lien
“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 dugout20 Nov 2028
Sebastian Jarl asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Market20 Nov 2028
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Mathias Grundetjern’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Market20 Nov 2028
The list is a quiet document with a loud meaning. Brice Ambina may talk to anybody who asks, and everybody at the club understands what that means.
Squad20 Nov 2028
Ruben Lien: “I am not a substitute”
“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 Valerenga will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Boardroom20 Nov 2028
Valerenga keep producing them
14 graduates from an academy now rated 15 out of 20. A club this size does not survive any other way, and every name on that list is known in the town.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings26 Jun 2028
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.60, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
The dugout26 Jun 2028
This is not rotation. Aaron Kiil Olsen has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Valerenga is pretending otherwise.
The dugout26 Jun 2028
“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.
Market26 Jun 2028
“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.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Henrik Skogvold and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout26 Jun 2028
The manager makes an example of Petter Strand
“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.
Match24 Jun 2028
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout26 Jun 2028
Ole Bohinen: “We have to be better”
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 2‑2 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Words at Valerenga training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabriel Oddvar Opsahl 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match15 Apr 2028
0‑1, and no way to dress it up. A derby defeat follows a supporter to work on Monday, and this one will follow him all week.
The dugout17 Apr 2028
This is not rotation. Ghayas Zahid has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Valerenga is pretending otherwise.
Market17 Apr 2028
“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 Valerenga, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad17 Apr 2028
A row about effort at Valerenga
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ghayas Zahid was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout17 Apr 2028
“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.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Gabriel Oddvar Opsahl and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings17 Apr 2028
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad17 Apr 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Nikola Udovicic commits to Valerenga for another 4 years.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Hugo Keto lets one through his hands
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.