The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. IK Start have lost him in all but the paperwork.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. IK Start have done the hard part with IF Elfsborg, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
John Olav Norheim 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.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Syver Aas 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Fredrik Riise has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Words at IK Start training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Syver Aas 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.
Terry Benjamin 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 are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Felix Kutsche Eriksen trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around IK Start they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
John Olav Norheim 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.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Steve Mvoué 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.
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Lucas Leaudais has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at IK Start.
The dugout19 Jun 2028
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Martin Bohinen chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at IK Start, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what IK Start can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at IK Start is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around IK Start people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Nikolas Koutsakos 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.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Words at IK Start training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jesper Cornelius 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.
7 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Adrian Evensen-Jensen and IK Start agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Nobody at IK Start 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. IK Start know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
John Olav Norheim 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.
IK Start asked and Bodo/Glimt said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The name of Storm Strand-Kolbjørnsen has come up in conversations IK Start were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at IK Start has been clear about where Jesper Cornelius stands, which is more than many ever get.
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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at IK Start, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $138.0K — a club that wants Storm Strand-Kolbjørnsen enough to be asked twice.
$130.0K on the table at IK Start. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Valladolid have kept their man, and Tromso go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Troy Nyhammer trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Tromso will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Tromso can pretend not to have heard.
Tromso have gone to IK Start 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.
$1.0M was the most the club would pay and Lillestrom 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sander Innvær was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Adrian Evensen-Jensen 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Tromso will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Sander Innvær 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Tromso, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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 Casper Øyvann signs something — a contract at Tromso or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 54 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Federico Nardin has, at Tromso, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
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.
Federico Nardin is 20, and Tromso 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.
Nobody at Tromso 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Tromso will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Mamadou Jalloh has just signed for Tromso, and for once the answer mattered.
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.
9 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.
Nobody at Tromso 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Tromso will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Oscar Meedom has, at Tromso, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Boris Todorov is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
27 appearances and 0 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
Nobody at Tromso 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Tromso, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 112 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
Adrian Evensen-Jensen 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.
7 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Sebastian Mihai Asan is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Tromso will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Tromso have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
10 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.
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 Jesper Grundt trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nobody sells a season ticket on a signing like this. Every manager who has been through a bad October wants one anyway, and Tromso have gone and got theirs early.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 51 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Successful dribbles: 28. 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Tromso have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
At 20 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Ruben Meling on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 65 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Ruben Yttergård Jenssen 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 easiest signature of my career.” Mansour Gueye and Tromso agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad6 Sep 2027
A place in the month's best eleven for Troy Nyhammer
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Troy Nyhammer has come out of that comparison in the side, and Tromso have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
4 appearances and 0 goals is not a season away, it is a year lost. He is back at Tromso no further forward, and everybody involved will explain why it was not their fault.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 72 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
$700.0K was the most the club would pay and Stabaek 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Lillestrom have kept their man, and Tromso go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
Ieltsin Camões was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.48. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
A point taken on 94 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
“I watch every Tromso game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Sarpsborg 08 runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Tromso will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Tromso have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 16 arrived, 18 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Tromso have gone to Stabaek 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.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Ruben Meling after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
200 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.
The young player of the month award goes to a 19-year-old at Tromso who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
Elscha Furaha 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.
Level with 91 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Tromso had all but put away. Stabaek will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Tromso told Daniel Braut something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Tromso, and 6 appearances in 18 say he has earned the hearing.
9 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout21 Jun 2027
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 0‑3 defeat, delivered by Ruben Meling to a room that had heard them before.
Nobody at Tromso is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Troy Nyhammer did not need any: 8.07, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
He is 19 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.
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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Elscha Furaha is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The words a physio says slowly. 21 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Ruben Meling after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Nobody at Tromso 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Tromso know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Tromso have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
Successful dribbles: 11. 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 dugoutThe manager makes Daniel Braut a promise
The words a physio says slowly. 50 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.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Troy Nyhammer did not need any: 7.79, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“I watch every Tromso game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Sarpsborg 08 runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Adrian Evensen-Jensen 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.
105 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Tromso lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
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.
“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.
The offer went to Stabaek this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Tromso can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Tromso offered $390.0K; Aalesund said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Lars Olden Larsen 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.
“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 Tromso will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
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.
Leon Hien 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Vetle Skjærvik, and the manager let it.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 Ruben Meling left the room before anybody could ask which.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until David Edvardsson signs something — a contract at Tromso or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
A brace, and Viktor Ekblom takes the afternoon — 8.92
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Viktor Ekblom provided it, and the 8.92 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There were 89 minutes on the clock and Stabaek had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Tromso did not stop to explain themselves.
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.
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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Ruben Meling on a 2‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Rosenborg next, and one man in the Tromso dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.