1‑1 against Vitoria Guimaraes, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
Jesper Daland and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Viking training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jakob Segadal Hansen 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.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
Veton Berisha is still being punished for one mistake
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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Anders Bærtelsen will call it something else in private.
Nobody at Viking 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.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
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.” Tobias Odegaard chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
At 21 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. Viking will try very hard not to make too much of it.
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 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.
Marked 7.96. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
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.” Tobias Odegaard, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Something was said to Kristoffer Askildsen and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Viking is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.35 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Viking this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.14, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Veton Berisha was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.04. 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.
Zlatko Tripic 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 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.
Nobody at Viking 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Viking, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Viking know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Mjondalen next, and one man in the Viking dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
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 Viking that is a harder question to answer.
3‑1 against Falkenberg, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Erik Botheim was at the centre of the description.
At 21 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Viking, another week without a signature from Erik Botheim.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jakob Segadal Hansen was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
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.” Tobias Odegaard, on a 3‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
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.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Viking, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Viking have no good answer.
0‑1 against Vitoria Guimaraes. Continental football is unforgiving about the things a domestic league lets a side get away with, and this was a night spent finding out which of those the club still has.
Joe Bell 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.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Viking can tell you which week it ends in.
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 Kristoffer Askildsen.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Viking, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Henrik Bjørdal will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Viking the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Zlatko Tripic 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.
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑1, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Squad28 Sep 2026
5 new faces, and Viking 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Viking, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“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.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Joe Bell'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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Lillestrom next, and one man in the Viking dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Lokomotiv Moscow waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Viking is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Henrik Bjørdal will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Viking the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
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 0‑1 Tobias Odegaard left the room before anybody could ask which.
6 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.
Bodo/Glimt have accepted the money. What Viking do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
The offer went to Rosenborg 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.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $360.0K — a club that wants Julian Faye Lund enough to be asked twice.
Zlatko Tripic 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.
Viking have gone to Molde with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.