Marked for Patrick Daehli
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market15 Oct 2035
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad15 Oct 2035
Marcus Berge 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.
The dugout15 Oct 2035
David Synstelien is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Market15 Oct 2035
2 months remain and no agreement is close. Every week without a signature costs Stabaek money.
Market15 Oct 2035
The Axel Drouhin story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Axel Drouhin signs something — a contract at Stabaek or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Squad15 Oct 2035
Luka Soldo still has not settled
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Stabaek would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
Market15 Oct 2035
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
The dugout15 Oct 2035
Vegard Daehli knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Stabaek, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Boardroom15 Oct 2035
The Stabaek academy earns its keep
103 graduates, from a department now rated 11 out of 20. Nothing about the academy appears in a result, and nothing about the club’s future exists without it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom3 Sep 2035
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Match1 Sep 2035
No end in sight to Stabaek's wait for a win
8 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Stabaek has to find a result from somewhere.
Market3 Sep 2035
Birger Meling hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Stabaek can pretend not to have heard.
Squad3 Sep 2035
A row about effort at Stabaek
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Axel Drouhin was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boardroom3 Sep 2035
The owner puts $537.3K into Stabaek
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
Market3 Sep 2035
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Stabaek, another week without a signature from Axel Drouhin.
Squad3 Sep 2035
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.
Squad3 Sep 2035
Vegard Daehli named in the team of the month
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Vegard Daehli is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout3 Sep 2035
Axel Drouhin without the man who signed him
Every squad is half players the manager chose and half players he inherited. Axel Drouhin was chosen, the man who chose him has gone, and he starts again from nothing under the next one.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The dugout26 Jun 2034
Morten Bjorkan: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Stabaek have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad26 Jun 2034
Words at Stabaek training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Patrick Bohinen 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.
Player ratings26 Jun 2034
Saku Ylätupa beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 16. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad26 Jun 2034
Words exchanged at Stabaek
Manuel Lanza 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 dugout26 Jun 2034
Half-satisfied: Interim Coach on the draw
“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.
The dugout26 Jun 2034
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Stabaek, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout26 Jun 2034
The manager makes an example of Alexander Ajer
“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.
Player ratings26 Jun 2034
Shots: 5, not one of them in. A centre forward is paid for one thing, and on this evidence he has forgotten which thing it is.
Match24 Jun 2034
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. IK Start defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.