Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Billy Gee will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Mjondalen the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Ruben Meling after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Mjondalen is running low.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Oliver Midtgård provided it, and the 8.74 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mjondalen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑1, Ruben Meling could afford to be generous.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Benjamin Sundo.
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.
2‑5 to Lillestrom, 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jonas Bruusgaard provided it, and the 8.01 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Mjondalen and Lillestrom, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
10 combined actions and 7.07. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
At 19 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.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Camil Mmaee. 1‑0 against Sandefjord, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Ware Peter Natana 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.
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.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
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.” Ruben Meling, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Benjamin Sundo will call it something else in private.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Mjondalen will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mjondalen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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.
The dugout13 Sep 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Ruben Meling chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Mjondalen, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Stabaek? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
Thomas Grøgaard 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.
0‑1 to Raufoss, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad26 Jul 2027
Kweku Kekeli 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Fredrik Dimmen Gjerde, and the manager let it.
The dugout26 Jul 2027
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 Ruben Meling to a room that had heard them before.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Mjondalen know which stage they are at.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
9 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.
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 9 combined actions and a mark of 6.69, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Ruben Meling after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Successful dribbles: 18. 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.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Mjondalen, and 1 appearances in 14 say he has earned the hearing.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Ruben Meling after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mjondalen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Mjondalen, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Mjondalen know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
A brace, and Camil Mmaee takes the afternoon — 8.39
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Camil Mmaee provided it, and the 8.39 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
7 goals in one match, Camil Mmaee on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Mjondalen and Kongsvinger.
The new man at Mjondalen has worked with Anders Hiim before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Fallou Sock 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 offer from IFK Norrkoping for Mikkel Søfeldt was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Mjondalen asked and Viking said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mjondalen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The new man at Mjondalen has worked with Anders Hiim before and it went well. He arrives with a view of the player already formed, which is worth more than any pre-season.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Mjondalen will not keep him by pretending otherwise.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Mjondalen would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
A new face in his position and a shirt he thought he owned suddenly up for discussion. Mjondalen have promised nothing, which is what clubs promise at this stage.
In brief
The dugoutBrinder Singh knocks on the manager's door
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Mjondalen can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Thomas Grøgaard 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.
IK Start paid $300.0K and Mjondalen took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Tromso have kept their man, and Mjondalen go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
8 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Thomas Grøgaard is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Øyvind Alseth was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Mjondalen is running low.
The deal with IK Start is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Add another name to the list: IK Start have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Nickolay Årsbog. The answer from Mjondalen has not changed — yet.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kweku Kekeli was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every squad is half players the manager chose and half players he inherited. Thomas Grøgaard was chosen, the man who chose him has gone, and he starts again from nothing under the next one.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Fredrik Dimmen Gjerde has moved up it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Benjamin Sundo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Peder Klausen 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Tobias Bjørnebye was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mjondalen this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
“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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Mjondalen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tobias Bjørnebye 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.
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 Mjondalen that is a harder question to answer.
Per-Egil Flo 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.
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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at Mjondalen training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kweku Kekeli 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.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Noah Jenssen Riise’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Mjondalen needing him to play as if none of it matters.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
What was a back-page link has become a chant, and the chant is not friendly. Mjondalen would rather it were settled quietly, and it has stopped being quiet.
7.80, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Kristian Kongelf is living that version at Mjondalen, and it tends to show in the first month.
Kweku Kekeli 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Ruben Meling after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Kristian Kongelf and Mjondalen agree another 4 years.