Marked for Patrick Berge
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad14 Sep 2026
Patrick Berge damages knee ligaments — 20 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 20 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Two goals and a mark of 9.10 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Up for the corner, and David Edvardsson delivers — 7.88
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. David Edvardsson scored, was marked 7.88, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Match12 Sep 2026
Tromso cannot stop winning
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Match12 Sep 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Vegard Erlien. 3‑2 against Mjondalen, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad14 Sep 2026
A row about effort at Tromso
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ruben Yttergård Jenssen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words exchanged at Tromso
William Kaastrup 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 dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Jakob Haugaard
“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 terraces14 Sep 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Mathias Tønnessen has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad7 Sep 2026
28 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.
Match5 Sep 2026
Tromso win it in stoppage time
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 93th minute. Odd will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Tromso
William Kaastrup 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.
The terraces7 Sep 2026
At 18 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.
Match5 Sep 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Vegard Erlien. 1‑0 against Odd, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Vegard Erlien was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.25. 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.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Daniel Braut is the division's best young player this month
At 21 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Tromso will try very hard not to make too much of it.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 17 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad31 Aug 2026
Patrick Berge damages knee ligaments — 35 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 35 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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Daniel Braut, 21, steals the show — 7.95
Marked 7.95 at 21, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Squad31 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Tromso
Sondre Rossbach and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Tromso training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ruben Yttergård Jenssen 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 dugout31 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Sondre Rossbach, and the manager let it.
Match29 Aug 2026
Sandefjord made Tromso work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Martin Lien, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
15 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad24 Aug 2026
42 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 34. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
IK Start wanted more than $830.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Tromso
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ruben Yttergård Jenssen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match22 Aug 2026
Late, late show earns Tromso a point
Minute 85, against IK Start, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
No hiding place for Leon Hien
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Leon Hien, and the manager let it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Tromso
Abderrahmane Sarr and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match22 Aug 2026
It needed Viktor Ekblom to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against IK Start, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Leo Cornic
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.