Marked for Fredrik Odegaard
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad5 May 2042
A fracture rules Julius Lucena out for 88 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Molde will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market5 May 2042
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Igor Orlikowski will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Molde the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Player ratings5 May 2042
Noah Bout scores twice — 8.79
Two goals and a mark of 8.79 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad5 May 2042
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Mervin Gbeme commits to Molde for another 2 years.
Squad5 May 2042
Tempers go at Molde
Gustav Nyheim 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.
Squad5 May 2042
Daniel Bassi 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.
Match3 May 2042
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Noah Bout. 2‑1 against Haugesund, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Market5 May 2042
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Rasmus Poulsen has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Molde.
Market5 May 2042
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Mar 2042
“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.
Market10 Mar 2042
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Molde they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Match10 Mar 2042
Molde up to position 3
58 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Market10 Mar 2042
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Molde heard it as anything else.
Market10 Mar 2042
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad10 Mar 2042
Tempers go at Molde
Gustav Nyheim 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad9 Dec 2041
Madi Monamay gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Madi Monamay has just signed for Molde, and for once the answer mattered.
Market9 Dec 2041
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Victor van der Aa will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Molde the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad9 Dec 2041
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market9 Dec 2041
Markus Wæhler wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Molde hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad9 Dec 2041
Tempers go at Molde
Gustav Nyheim 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.
Squad9 Dec 2041
Adriano Jagušić 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.
Market9 Dec 2041
At 35, he has seen every situation this season can produce, twice. The legs will be managed; the head is the purchase.
The terraces9 Dec 2041
The spotlight tightens on Madi Monamay
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
Boardroom9 Dec 2041
The Molde production line keeps running
178 graduates out of an academy now rated 9 out of 20. Clubs this size survive on exactly that, and the town knows every name.