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.
Sander Odegaard 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 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.
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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Giovanni Giunti signs something — a contract at Tromso or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Successful dribbles: 23. 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.
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.
1‑3 to IK Start, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout22 Oct 2035
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 1‑3 Interim Coach left the room before anybody could ask which.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Tromso told Alexander Bohinen something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Martin Ryerson
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.
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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Tromso is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Giovanni Giunti was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Interim Coach after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
5 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.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Giovanni Giunti scored, was marked 7.92, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Giovanni Giunti was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
6 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
The club looked outside for a month, found nothing it preferred, and handed the job to the man who had been doing it anyway. He knows the building; now he has to prove he knows the rest.
Player ratings7 May 2035
Lars Sorloth, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.76
A mark of 7.76 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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 a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Lars Sorloth 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.
The young player of the month award goes to a 21-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.
Minute 86, against Stabaek, 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 dugout7 May 2035
The manager has not finished forgetting Kristian Linnes's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Sander Odegaard 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 words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
“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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Tromso is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
Sander Odegaard 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 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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Patrick Ryerson is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Giovanni Giunti signs something — a contract at Tromso or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“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.
“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.
Squad11 Dec 2034
Words at Tromso training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Giovanni Giunti 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.
Sander Odegaard 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.
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.