Marked for Daniel Gjone Dobbe
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad10 Dec 2029
Words at Sandefjord training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Marcus Melchior 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.
Squad10 Dec 2029
Kristoffer Halvorsen and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout10 Dec 2029
Elias Hadaya gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Elias Hadaya is on it.
The dugout10 Dec 2029
“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.
Market10 Dec 2029
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Vetle Walle Egeli’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Squad10 Dec 2029
The table has started to be checked before the results are in, and that is always the tell. Nobody at Sandefjord says the word out loud, and everybody in the building is thinking it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad12 Nov 2029
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sandefjord this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Nov 2029
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Jens Daehli commits to Sandefjord for another 3 years.
The dugout12 Nov 2029
Elias Hadaya gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Elias Hadaya is on it.
Squad12 Nov 2029
Words at Sandefjord training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ole Aanvik Wingsternæs 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 dugout12 Nov 2029
“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 dugout12 Nov 2029
Ervin Gigović 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom5 Nov 2029
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Stefan Hauge has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Squad5 Nov 2029
Vetle Walle Egeli 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
Marcus Melchior 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.
The dugout5 Nov 2029
“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 dugout5 Nov 2029
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Xander Lambrix is on it.
Market5 Nov 2029
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Sander Risan Mørk’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
The dugout5 Nov 2029
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Daniel Gjone Dobbe is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
Squad5 Nov 2029
“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.
The dugout5 Nov 2029
Jens Daehli knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Sandefjord, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces1 Oct 2029
Anger at Sandefjord spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Boardroom1 Oct 2029
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Sandefjord
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Match29 Sep 2029
9 matches without a win for Sandefjord
The run now stands at 9, and the questions being asked around Sandefjord are no longer polite ones.
Market1 Oct 2029
“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.
Match29 Sep 2029
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 7 matches without defeat is a foundation Sandefjord did not have in the autumn.
Squad1 Oct 2029
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sandefjord this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings1 Oct 2029
Successful dribbles: 22. 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.
Player ratings1 Oct 2029
7.67, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Sandefjord had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
The dugout1 Oct 2029
Jakob Dunsby loses the manager who believed in him
A change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Jakob Dunsby's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.