Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 10 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
0‑6 to Fredrikstad, 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.
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Fredrik Gulbrandsen commits to Lillestrom for another 2 years.
Match7 Jul 2029
Nobody could stop scoring
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Lillestrom and Fredrikstad in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Espen Garnås was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Lars Berge after 0‑6, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lillestrom can pretend not to have heard.
4 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.
Sander Lønning 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 22 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.
Nobody at Lillestrom will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad21 May 2029
Words at Lillestrom training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Espen Garnås 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.
Valerenga next, which means a week that starts on Monday. Everything else on this page will be forgotten by Saturday; this fixture will not be forgotten for a year.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Lars Berge after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer 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 Lillestrom this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
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.
In brief
The dugoutStefan Hagerup asks for a word with the manager
15 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.
6 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Lillestrom can tell you which week it ends in.
Sander Lønning 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.
11 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
“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; Lillestrom are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
“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 Lillestrom, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Lillestrom they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Didrik Fredriksen 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.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Lars Remmem trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“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 Lillestrom, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.87 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Lillestrom have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“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 Lillestrom know it.
“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 Lillestrom hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
100 for the club now, each one filed in somebody’s memory with a date and a scoreline. Numbers like this are what supporters argue about in twenty years.
Harald Woxen 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.
A 1‑0 win over Viking, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Words at Lillestrom training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Didrik Fredriksen 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.
“Every summer it is another club, another set of team-mates, another manager to convince. I have done all that. Now I want a pre-season at Lillestrom and a proper look at me.” He remains Djurgarden’s player until the spell runs out — but the argument is with the club that owns him.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Camil Jebara has his answer from Lillestrom; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
“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 Lillestrom, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Words at Lillestrom training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lars Remmem 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 Lillestrom know it.
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 Yaw Paintsil is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Lillestrom know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Lillestrom. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lillestrom this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Lillestrom can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Amund Sæther Arntsen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Fredrik Gulbrandsen signs something — a contract at Lillestrom or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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 least glamorous thing a foreign signing ever does and the one that decides most of them. A player who can hear the shout behind him is a different footballer from one who cannot.
The offer from Cracovia for Jesper Fiksdal 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Didrik Fredriksen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Amund Sæther Arntsen 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.
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 Camil Jebara is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Jesper Fiksdal trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“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.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Mamadou Diang has written the date down.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Didrik Fredriksen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lillestrom this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Daniel Bassi signs something — a contract at Lillestrom or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Kparobo Arierhi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
André Stavås Skistad has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
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.
Promotion, confirmed and mathematical, and a town that will not sleep much tonight. Whatever else this season had in it, it ends a division higher than it began.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Lillestrom have had the benefit of it.
“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.
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.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
29 games, 2 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at Lillestrom now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.