Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Villads Bertelsen is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad31 Dec 2029
Casper Øyvann 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 Tromso can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
Patrik Iliev 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ieltsin Camões signs something — a contract at Tromso or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Casper Øyvann 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 Tromso this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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; Tromso are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Noah Berger 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Martin Lien on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
That is the business done at Tromso until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Marek Lašák has just signed for Tromso, and for once the answer mattered.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Casper Øyvann was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
He will be fined, he will apologise, and he will play on Saturday. The order of those three tells you everything about what a football club actually values.
The offer went to Mjondalen 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.
Vegard Erlien 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.
$500.0K was the most the club would pay and Haugesund 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 Casper Øyvann was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He will be fined, he will apologise, and he will play on Saturday. The order of those three tells you everything about what a football club actually values.
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.