Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 44 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 51 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Lars Olden Larsen provided it, and the 9.06 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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.
Casper Øyvann 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.
The loan was meant to give him football. 2 games and 0 goals later he is back at Tromso no further forward, and everybody involved will explain why it was not their doing.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 58 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
5 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.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 65 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Successful dribbles: 31. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings23 Aug 2027
A brace, and Viktor Ekblom takes the afternoon — 8.53
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Viktor Ekblom provided it, and the 8.53 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“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 Tromso, and it is not being withdrawn.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Troy Nyhammer did not need any: 7.83, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
4 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Tromso and IK Start, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 72 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Troy Nyhammer did not need any: 8.00, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“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 Tromso, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Mateusz Posmyk is living that version at Tromso, and it tends to show in the first month.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Emil Norman has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Tromso have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Player ratings16 Aug 2027
Casper Øyvann was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.84. 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.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Tromso will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Tromso can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from Lillestrom for Vetle Skjærvik 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.
The fee is $1.1M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Stromsgodset drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Abdulla Al-Marzooqi is living that version at Tromso, and it tends to show in the first month.
“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 Tromso, and 2 appearances in 21 say he has earned the hearing.
A season average of 7.37 with 7 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Words at Tromso training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jesper Grundt 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 words a physio says slowly. 14 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.
28 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.
A season average of 7.02 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Tromso know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Casper Øyvann 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.
Squad26 Jul 2027
Words at Tromso training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikolaj 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.
Marked 8.50 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
22 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tromso lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Tromso have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The phone has started ringing about Tobias Guddal again, and this time the name on the line is Molde. Tromso are listening politely and promising nothing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tromso this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 9.40 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tromso lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Casper Øyvann 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.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Tromso can pretend not to have heard.
A season average of 7.05 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Tromso know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
“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; Tromso are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Words at Tromso training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikolaj 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.
A performance of 8.63 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Words at Tromso training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jesper Grundt 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.
A mark of 2.62 tells the story without any need for embellishment. He will want the tape of this one quietly lost.
Squad21 Jun 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Casper Øyvann'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.
Nobody at Tromso 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.
There were 8 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Words at Tromso training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikolaj 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.
Ólafur Guðmundsson 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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Lars Olden Larsen signs something — a contract at Tromso or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 29 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
7 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad17 May 2027
Words at Tromso training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nikolaj 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.
11 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
“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 Tromso, and 2 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
27 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
“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.
Squad10 May 2027
Words at Tromso training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jesper Grundt 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 8.06 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tromso this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Sander Innvær 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.
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Words at Tromso training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jesper Grundt 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 watch every Tromso game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Brondby runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Troy Nyhammer, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 9.10
A mark of 9.10 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tromso this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Troy Nyhammer 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.
Squad19 Apr 2027
Words at Tromso training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jesper Grundt 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 watch every Tromso game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Helsingborg runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Jens Hjertø-Dahl, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.90
A mark of 7.90 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tromso this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Viktor Ekblom was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.60. 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.
Nobody at Tromso 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 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.62 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Bruno Salgado is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tromso this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
10 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
It is the least glamorous business a club does and the reason seasons do not collapse in February. Bruno Salgado is here for the weeks when three men are injured and somebody still has to play.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tromso this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A performance of 8.34 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Jesper Grundt 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.
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.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Troy Nyhammer did not need any: 7.79, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tromso this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“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; Tromso are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
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 86th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Daniel Braut decided nobody was going anywhere. Sarpsborg 08 had no time left to answer.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Daniel Braut, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.85
A mark of 8.85 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Casper Øyvann 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Daniel Braut. 2‑1 against Sarpsborg 08, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
Marked 8.68. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Tromso.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Jesper Grundt 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.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Troy Nyhammer did not need any: 8.21, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Ruben Yttergård Jenssen 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Troy Nyhammer 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.
Marked 8.68 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Tromso training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jesper Grundt 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.
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad21 Sep 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Jakob Haugaard'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.
A performance of 8.86 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Tromso training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eivind Willumsen 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.
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.
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.
Shots: 8. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tromso this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Jesper Grundt 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.
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.
A 1‑0 win over Molde, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Sander Innvær, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 9.19
A mark of 9.19 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.32 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Add another name to the list: Brondby have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Alexis Martínez. The answer from Tromso has not changed — yet.
Jens Hjertø-Dahl 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Casper Øyvann was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.82. 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Viktor Ekblom, and the manager let it.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Jakob Haugaard'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.
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Daniel Braut obliged against Viking. 1‑1 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Tromso.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Sander Innvær, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.12
A mark of 8.12 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Casper Øyvann 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 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.
Marked 8.32 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
In brief
SquadJesper Grundt falls out with a teammate over standards
Player ratingsThe kick that got away from Michael Silva
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Tromso have paid $140.0K for Alexis Martínez, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Casper Øyvann 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.
Marked 8.71 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
A conversation is coming this week. Tromso will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Tromso training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Eivind Willumsen 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 decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ruben Yttergård Jenssen and Tromso agree another 2 years.
Ruben Yttergård Jenssen 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.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Viktor Ekblom has his answer from Tromso; what he does with it is the next window’s story.