Bodo/Glimt have been on a long journey to reach the league phase of the Champions League for the first time and now face a familiar opponent in the form of Tottenham Hotspur
In some ways, Bodo/Glimt’s run to the league phase of the Champions League might feel like a miracle, but in others it’s the most natural thing in the world. The team from just north of the Arctic Circle is the first from Norway to reach the Champions League proper for the best part of two decades, but it’s something they’ve been building towards for some time.
Back in 2021/22, they beat Jose Mourinho’s Roma 6-1 in a group stage game in the Conference League, eventually reaching the quarter-finals of the competition and last season they beat big-hitters Olympiacos and Lazio en route to the Europa League semis, losing to Tottenham. Tonight, their home of Aspmyra Stadion – the smallest in this season’s Champions League with a capacity of just over 8,000 – welcomes Spurs once again.
Barely a decade ago, though, things looked very different. Håvard Sakariassen, the club’s former player and current sporting director, joined the backroom staff upon retiring in 2011 and faced a very different reality to the one we see today.
“It was a completely different club than today because we were almost bankrupt, we didn’t have a kit manager,” Sakariassen tells Mirror Football. “We had to fire the kit manager because we couldn’t afford him… so we actually washed our training gear at home and we came ready to to go to practice.
“Then you have to do everything, you know, you have to be the kit manager, you have to arrange the trips, you have to be a part of everything, including what I do now. So I think the knowledge of the holistic part of the football club is somehow good to have. Then you have respect for the the roles of everyone. and you see that everyone, everything has to come together.
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“We have a quarter-final in Conference League, we have a semi-final and Europa League. So it is weird because when we qualified for Champions League, I can say that I felt like, ‘okay, yeah [this makes sense]’. Because it was weird, but it kind of felt well-deserved too.
“It’s weird because I know the story of the club and I know where we were 10 years ago. But also we’ve done a good job in the last years. So we kind of felt also that we deserve this opportunity.”
Bodo/Glimt’s remoteness might look like a challenge for some – Bodo is nearly 2,000 miles from London and more than 500 miles from the Norwegian capital of Oslo – but those at the club see it as an opportunity. If nothing else, it means the players they can bring on board will join for the right reasons, and a lot of work takes place behind the scenes to ensure everyone is a cultural fit as well as a tactical one.
In a world of multi-club models and cross-border partnerships, Sakariassen values another secret weapon – the concept of Vårres Måte, which essentially translates as ‘our way’. “If we try to copy something, we’re just gonna be a bad copy of something,” he says. “If we… should have any chance to become something unique and to get the potential out of the club, we have to do it our way.”
It has helped, over the years, for Bodo/Glimt to be able to point to significant success stories. A prime example is that of Albert Gronbaek, who had been sitting on Aarhus’ bench when he moved to Norway in 2022 and left two-and-a-half years later as a full international and – ultimately – Bodo/Glimt’s record sale.
Suddenly the calibre of player who might previously have had second thoughts about such a remote move were beginning to welcome it. The club have also recruited smartly from within Norway, and one of those players – defender Jostein Gundersen – is under no illusions about the things which have helped the team thrive.
“We have a unique culture here, everyone goes in the same direction. Everyone wants to take the next step,” Gundersen says. “We are living far north in Europe, but we have a unique togetherness and culture that makes it a special place to play football in.”
Gundersen, 29, played every minute of the knockout stages in last season’s Europa League and started the first league phase game in this season’s Champions League. Bodo/Glimt trailed 2-0 away at Slavia Prague with just 15 minutes to go but didn’t give up, snatching a draw in the final minute through substitute Sondre Brunstad Fet.
He describes Spurs as the best side he faced last season, but feels the Norwegians can cause problems for anyone who heads to Bodo this season. That includes the Europa League holders, but also Monaco, Juventus and 2023 Champions League winners Manchester City.
“I think it might be a challenge to come here for a lot of teams,” Gundersen adds “It’s probably not the sexiest stadium for the world class players that are coming here.
“For our sake we just want to improve every single day, and that has now taken us to the Champions League. We are here to perform, and we feel like we deserve to be here. You can tell by walking in the city that the whole city and region is proud to be here, and that makes us proud.”
When sporting director Sakariassen reflects on the days leading up to Spurs’ visit, he notes – with a smile – that autumn is coming. He’s someone who enjoys the distinct seasons you get in Bodo, and that’s no less than you’d expect from someone who grew up 100 metres from the stadium and lives even closer now, but he also enjoys the different pace of life compared to some of European football’s bigger cities.
“For me it’s much better to live in Bodo and travel to London for a weekend,” he says. “Because if you like to you have the city and you have all the good life, but you also have insane nature around you. The freedom you feel here.
“The nature around here is amazing. The life here is really easy because you can move from A to B, you don’t spend any time in the traffic of your life in Bodo,. and that has value. If you start for two hours every day in traffic, then you waste a lot of your life.”
It’s perhaps this simpler approach which informs Bodo/Glimt’s outlook for their European campaigns. There’s been a buzz around the town thanks to the Champions League, perhaps a little more than before, but up there Vårres Måte means taking things as they come rather than dreaming big and having to reset.
“When we kind of started this journey five years ago, there was, we didn’t have a plan of coming here,” Sakariassen says. “[In football] you can make all these great plans and it takes two two months or one year and you can toss it in the bin.
“So it’s a fact of football, I think, and it’s probably a fact of life that the best way of working is actually doing it day by day and grab all the momentums that you can have along the way and just try to improve everything all the time. And suddenly you know, tomorrow, maybe there’s the door open I was not open today, and then if it’s smart to go in that door, you go in.”
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