“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.
Player ratings11 Sep 2028
A brace, and Ole Enersen takes the afternoon — 8.47
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ole Enersen provided it, and the 8.47 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” IK Start have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Eirik Schulze 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.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Steve Mvoué 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 watch every IK Start game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Valerenga runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what IK Start can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Marius Nordal will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around IK Start the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Eirik Schulze 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.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Steve Mvoué 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. IK Start know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Terry Benjamin’s exile
MarketThe window shut and Leandro Chaparro is still in the building
Position 15 and 17 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what IK Start can pretend not to have heard.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Filip Nović has just signed for IK Start, and for once the answer mattered.
17 points and a position everybody in the ground can do the arithmetic on. The songs have stopped being about the team and started being about surviving, which is a different noise entirely.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Viking moved on, Tobias Dahl reports back to IK Start, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Jasper Torkildsen was one of the reasons people came, and $1.1M does not replace that by itself.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Samuel Klieštik is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 1 on the scoresheet, 6.91 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what IK Start can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from Bodo/Glimt for Tobias Dahl 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IK Start this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
8.65. 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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. IK Start told Ahmed Adebayo something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what IK Start can pretend not to have heard.
Position 14 and 13 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.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IK Start this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IK Start this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IK Start this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at IK Start can tell you which week it ends in.
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.
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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and IK Start know it.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. IK Start will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
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.
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. IK Start lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Jacob Pryts 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.
A 1‑0 win over Mjondalen, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad5 Jun 2028
Words at IK Start training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Håkon Lorentzen 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.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
12 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
28 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. IK Start lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around IK Start they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Eirik Schulze 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.
Squad22 May 2028
Words at IK Start training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ole Enersen 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.
11 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what IK Start can pretend not to have heard.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Jacob Pryts 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around IK Start they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad24 Apr 2028
Words at IK Start training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ole Enersen 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; IK Start are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“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 IK Start, and 2 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
Herman Waage 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.
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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.11 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IK Start this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Håkon Lorentzen scored, and precious little else went right: 2‑3 to Lillestrom, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad17 Apr 2028
Ole Enersen 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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at IK Start, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
7 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.
6 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; IK Start are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Leandro Chaparro 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 spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Stian Meling is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Sander Johansen has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Jonas Sorloth has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
In brief
SquadWords at IK Start training over how hard people work
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what IK Start can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IK Start this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 63 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 45 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Fredrik Pålerud has agreed terms with Molde for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
114 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. IK Start lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Eirik Schulze 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IK Start this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“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 IK Start, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IK Start this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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 Terry Benjamin.
Marked 3.11. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
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.
In brief
Player ratingsAn afternoon Ahmed Adebayo will want back
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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at IK Start, and 0 appearances in 17 say he has earned the hearing.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. IK Start told Terry Benjamin something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IK Start this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 7 of the 31 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Jacob Pryts 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 Oct 2027
Words at IK Start training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Markus Soomets 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.
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
“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 IK Start, and it is not being withdrawn.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around IK Start they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Eirik Schulze 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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Words at IK Start training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Markus Soomets 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 am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at IK Start, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what IK Start can pretend not to have heard.
Tromso paid $810.0K and IK Start took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Jacob Pryts 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 Aug 2027
Words at IK Start training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Markus Soomets 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.
Add another name to the list: Stromsgodset have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Julian Håbesland. The answer from IK Start has not changed — yet.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IK Start this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 21 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Add another name to the list: Stabaek have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Herman Waage. The answer from IK Start has not changed — yet.
Player ratings2 Aug 2027
Markus Soomets was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.13. 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.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 31 combined actions and a mark of 6.02, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Words at IK Start training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Markus Soomets 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.
Herman Waage 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.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.81 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Eirik Schulze 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.
Eirik Schulze scored, and precious little else went right: 2‑3 to Haugesund, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Words at IK Start training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Markus Soomets 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.
Marked 5.12. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what IK Start can pretend not to have heard.
Three points for IK Start, 3‑2 the final word against Aalesund in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad17 May 2027
Words at IK Start training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Markus Soomets 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.
At 22 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.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Aalesund spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
The words a physio says slowly. 30 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IK Start this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
37 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. IK Start lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
6 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what IK Start can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IK Start this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 words a physio says slowly. 84 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IK Start this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadMarkus Soomets falls out with a teammate over standards
“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 IK Start, and it is not being withdrawn.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 88 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IK Start this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadMarkus Soomets falls out with a teammate over standards
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Ahmed Adebayo’s exile
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IK Start this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what IK Start can pretend not to have heard.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at IK Start this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
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.
Words at IK Start training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Markus Soomets 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.
Leandro Chaparro 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.