Back in 2011, Bodø/Glimt were cash-strapped and forced into a routine beloved of park footballers. They were labouring in Norway's second tier and - as their sporting director, Håvard Sakariassen, puts it - had "hit the wall". Those long trips from inside the Arctic Circle feel even more onerous when you are doing everything yourself and, as they prepare to visit Manchester United, they would be forgiven a moment to marvel at how the picture has transformed.
"We didn't have a kit manager so we washed our kit at home and came to training already dressed," says Sakariassen, who had recently quit as a player and found himself taking de facto responsibility for managing the team's equipment. "To compare that to our resources today, it is a totally different world."
It says everything that, when Bodø/Glimt walk out at Old Trafford, they will neither look nor feel out of place. This is their fifth successive season of European football and they have racked up the scalps. A Roma team managed by José Mourinho were thrashed 6-1 in 2021. Celtic and, in the Europa League this season, Porto are among a string of other victims. Arsenal were run mightily close two years ago. Whereas once there was novelty value in seeing a club from northern Europe's furthest reaches, and a home town of fewer than 50,000 inhabitants, bloodying noses, they now feel like a staple.
Denne historien er fra November 28, 2024-utgaven av The Guardian.
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