Marked for Jacob Buus
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match5 May 2027
Odd through in the cup
A 2‑1 win over Lillestrom, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Market10 May 2027
“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.
Squad10 May 2027
Words exchanged at Odd
Andreas Oggesen 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 terraces10 May 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Johan Solstad-Nøis 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.
Match8 May 2027
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout10 May 2027
“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 ratings10 May 2027
Ninety minutes of Zakaria Mugeese at his very best
Marked 8.74. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Odd.
The dugout10 May 2027
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 0‑2 Patrick Bjorkan left the room before anybody could ask which.
Player ratings10 May 2027
Successful dribbles: 14. 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market3 May 2027
Jacob Buus 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 Odd can pretend not to have heard.
The dugout3 May 2027
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Odd have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Match1 May 2027
A bad afternoon for Odd against Lillestrom
0‑1 to Lillestrom, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad3 May 2027
Daniel Johan Skaarud is the division's best young player this month
At 19 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. Odd will try very hard not to make too much of it.
Player ratings3 May 2027
Successful dribbles: 16. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout3 May 2027
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Patrick Bjorkan after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Squad3 May 2027
Four or five weekends of consistency, measured against everybody else in the division. A quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout3 May 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Marcus Mehnert, and the manager let it.
The dugout3 May 2027
Syver Aas 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 Odd, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market15 Feb 2027
“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.
Transfer targets15 Feb 2027
Odd and Tromso have settled on $19.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Market15 Feb 2027
Stabaek come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Odd did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets15 Feb 2027
The offer went to Bodo/Glimt this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Transfer targets15 Feb 2027
Odd asked and Lillestrom said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market15 Feb 2027
He is 19, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
Squad15 Feb 2027
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Market15 Feb 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Odd know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Squad15 Feb 2027
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Odd would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces25 Jan 2027
The mood at Odd 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.
Match25 Jan 2027
Every point is an argument now for Odd
Position 15 and 10 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.
Market25 Jan 2027
“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.
Market25 Jan 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Odd know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Nobody writes a headline about a tutor. Nobody has to be told, either, what happens to a signing who spends two years being the man nobody can talk to at lunch.
The dugout25 Jan 2027
The manager comes out for Syver Aas
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Syver Aas has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market4 Jan 2027
“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.
Boardroom4 Jan 2027
Pressure builds in the Odd boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
The dugout4 Jan 2027
Jacob Buus says Odd went back on their word
“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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
The dugout4 Jan 2027
“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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Jacob Buus commits to Odd for another 3 years.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Tempers go at Odd
Marcus Mehnert 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Odd will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
The dugout4 Jan 2027
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market16 Nov 2026
“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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Daniel Söderberg commits to Odd for another 4 years.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Jacob Buus
“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 dugout16 Nov 2026
Josef Baccay knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Josef Baccay trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market16 Nov 2026
The clock does Josef Baccay’s negotiating for him
2 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Odd could ask drops and the wages Josef Baccay can ask rise.
Market16 Nov 2026
The name of Hinrik Harðarson keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Odd say nothing, which says plenty.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
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 Zakaria Mugeese is on it.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Odd that is a harder question to answer.
Looking ahead16 Nov 2026
Looking ahead: the trip to Stromsgodset
Position 12 for the hosts, a long journey for the away end, and a fixture that will look ordinary on paper right up until it is not.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market9 Nov 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Odd, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad9 Nov 2026
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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Abduljeleel Abdulateef commits to Odd for another 5 years.
Match7 Nov 2026
Odd come up short against Viking
Viking left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Abduljeleel Abdulateef, and the manager let it.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Patrick Bjorkan to a room that had heard them before.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market9 Nov 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Odd, another week without a signature from Justin Salmon.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
Josef Baccay knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Josef Baccay trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market26 Oct 2026
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Odd is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
“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.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Marked 8.03. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Odd.
Squad26 Oct 2026
12 new faces, and Odd are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The form table has caught Jacob Buus
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 12. 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.
Market26 Oct 2026
The name of Kevin Krygård keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Odd say nothing, which says plenty.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match17 Oct 2026
At last: Odd win one
10 matches without a win, and then this, against Mjondalen. Relief is a strange noise in a football ground and it was the only noise at the end.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
The terraces19 Oct 2026
At 20 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.
Match17 Oct 2026
It finished 1‑0, and it was Filip Rønningen Jørgensen’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Odd.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
8.11. 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 ratings19 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Patrick Bjorkan could afford to be generous.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Jacob Buus, and the manager let it.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match3 Oct 2026
10 matches without a win for Odd
The run now stands at 10, and the questions being asked around Odd are no longer polite ones.
Match5 Oct 2026
Every point is an argument now for Odd
Position 16 and 3 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.
Market5 Oct 2026
Only the photograph left for Josef Baccay
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Josef Baccay will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Odd the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad5 Oct 2026
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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Tempers go at Odd
Josef Baccay 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 Oct 2026
Per-Egil Flo is not the player he was
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 37 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Match3 Oct 2026
Odd and Aalesund take a point apiece
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Patrick Bjorkan was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Odd dressing room was either.
In brief
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Player ratings
Casper Glenna was unplayable
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The dugout
Somebody else is better right now than Jacob Buus
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Market
Experience through the door at Odd
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match26 Sep 2026
No end in sight to Odd's wait for a win
9 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Odd has to find a result from somewhere.
Market28 Sep 2026
Only the photograph left for Justin Salmon
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Justin Salmon will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Odd the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Match26 Sep 2026
3 matches without a goal for Odd
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Match26 Sep 2026
A bad afternoon for Odd against Sandefjord
0‑1 to Sandefjord, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Justin Salmon, and the manager let it.
Squad28 Sep 2026
11 new faces, and Odd are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Patrick Bjorkan to a room that had heard them before.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. 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 dugout28 Sep 2026
Josef Baccay 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 Odd, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match12 Sep 2026
Odd taken apart
0‑3 to Tromso, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Market14 Sep 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Odd, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match12 Sep 2026
No end in sight to Odd's wait for a win
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Odd has to find a result from somewhere.
Match12 Sep 2026
No clean sheets in sight for Odd
5 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Filip Rønningen Jørgensen, and the manager let it.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Boardroom14 Sep 2026
Doors closed at Odd
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Patrick Bjorkan after 0‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Market14 Sep 2026
Odd and Justin Salmon are talking past each other
“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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market7 Sep 2026
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Odd is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market7 Sep 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Odd can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Josef Baccay has agreed to leave Odd for nothing
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Market7 Sep 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad7 Sep 2026
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.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Odd, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Kevin Krygård moves up the pecking order
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Odd than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
Market7 Sep 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Hinrik Harðarson’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A year in and the language has not come, the city has not opened up, and he eats alone more often than anybody at Odd would like to admit. It is showing on Saturdays.