The Lillestrom Courier
Match1 Jul 2028
The wait goes on for Lillestrom
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.
The terraces3 Jul 2028
The mood at Lillestrom has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Match3 Jul 2028
Every point is an argument now for Lillestrom
Position 16 and 6 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Player ratings3 Jul 2028
Yaw Paintsil runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 26. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings3 Jul 2028
A first appearance Hakon Odegaard will want to forget — 5.73
Everybody's debut is one of two stories and this was the other one. 5.73, and the only consolation available is that nobody's career has ever been decided by ninety minutes in a shirt he had just been given.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Tempers go at Lillestrom
Martin Frýdek 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.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Sondre Tronstad 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.
Match1 Jul 2028
A bad afternoon for Lillestrom against Aalesund
1‑2 to Aalesund, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Ylldren Ibrahimaj gets it from the manager
“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.
In brief
- Player ratings Sondre Tronstad in the eights
- Boardroom Lillestrom sign 9 boys into the academy
- Squad Sondre Tronstad has become a man the manager trusts