Taking Norway to the Top

[Sportsviking]

Welcome to my FM journey!

I’ve been a long-time player and I’ve tried to start a few stories in the past. But it was always hard to keep up with the updates and to get through seasons quickly enough.

But this year FM touch is available for iOS devices! I many more opportunities to pull out my phone and work through a season than I do to sit down at a computer. So with a more comprehensive version of the game available on mobile, I set out on my favorite FM challenge: to lead the rise of Norwegian soccer!

I’ll start out in the Second Division (third tier on the Norwegian domestic pyramid) and attempt to bring a club all the way to the Norwegian Premier Division. Once there and established, I hope to build my team into a surprise Champions League contender.

Playing, developing, and building a club around youth/homegrown players is my absolute favorite part of Football Manager. I’ll focus on stocking my team with as many high-potential, young Norwegians as possible in addition to my own youth products. My long-term goal is to take over the Norwegian National Team and use my own players as the backbone of World Cup qualification.

So plenty ambitious! Let’s get into the details!

I’ve elected to go with Tromsdalen because of their terrific starting youth setup. This should put us ahead of the game in terms of youth intake and developing homegrowns. I also love how far north in Norway this club is located - hopefully down the line we’ll force a few teams to come play Champions League matches in heavy snow!

So we’re underway! Next post will cover our preseason including a look at the squad and some of the youth prospects at the club.

Hopefully you’ll enjoy following along!

 

[Sportsviking]

Club Evaluation

Staff

The starting staff at the club reflects the youth focus and I couldn’t be more pleased with that. I tried to upgrade the General Manager position as I find it useful to let them negotiate contracts when possible, but all my desired candidates were demanding almost triple the maximum salary allowed by the board. Thomas Heide survives for at least this season.

I did upgrade our Head of Youth Development by bringing in Eric Kleiven who was better than our starting HoYD in almost every way. We’ve got plenty of young, talented players already in the squad so we can’t afford to waste any development time.

Squad

Overall, this is an excellent starting squad. I think we absolutely have enough talent to earn promotion this season, which would be ahead of the board’s set schedule. The real question is, if we do win promotion, can we stay in the First Division next season. The depth is lacking, however. Something that’s first on the checklist to address in preseason.

Here’s a look at our overall depth chart and position-by-position breakdown. I’m really happy with the mix of talent, experience, and youth that we have across most positions. I fully intend to work on a plan to get each of these talented prospects game time this season.

We’re not without holes in the squad, though. We’re shockingly thin at LB and I’ll immediately be looking to bring in a reliable backup to avoid playing 32-year-old Havard Lysvoll every single minute. I’d also like to find a more exciting prospect at either fullback spot to begin developing.

Central midfield is the biggest problem area as we only have three true CMs in the team. Ulrik Celius is one of our most exciting prospects and will immediately be recalled from his loan to train with the first team and provide cover. I’m also not super excited about the long-term potential of the central midfield outside of Celius. I will be looking to sign another CM as depth in preseason, preferably one with a long-term future at the club.

One additional striker wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. However, I’m planning to play one of my attacking midfielders as a false 9 to maximize the wing talent, meaning we have plenty of depth at forward this season.

Alexander Mikkelsen and Martin Albertsen are on massive contracts relative to our overall wage budget. Neither are good enough to be starters and neither have any interesting potential. Both easy sales.

Preseason Squad Goals

• Sign backup LB, preferably one who can also cover RB
  • Prospect if possible
• Sign CM for depth, preferably one with high potential
  • Possible CAM signing as well if it seems like he’ll have a long term future at the club
• Transfer out two high-earning players to clear salary

Youth Initiative Update

As I progress through the save, I’ll periodically add in these updates to track how the club’s brightest prospects are progressing. As this is the first entry, I’ll give a more comprehensive overview of the club’s young players.

Isak Vadebu

Arguable the most exciting prospect at the club. Only 18 and already starter quality CA, with big-time potential. He’ll be the starter at RCB from the opening game. We’ll look to manage his minutes a bit to make sure he doesn’t fatigue. Hopefully a key piece of the team’s spine for years to come


Sebastian Warvik

A technically gifted, left-footed centerback. Only 16 and the key stats already look great, especially that 16 determination. He’ll back up veteran Tobias Vibe at LCB, getting plenty of gametime throughout the season.


Ulrik Celius

Already a physical monster at 16 with a surprising amount of technical quality. He’ll start the season as a rotation and cup player at CM, but could easily win a starting job if he performs. Planning to build the long-term future of the team around him and Vadebu.


Dovydas Zala

Not quite sold on Zala yet, but as our only out-and-out young striker, he’ll get his shot this year. Finishing definitely needs work, and he’s not truly special in any one area, but he’s rated as “potentially First Division quality.” We’ll see.


Other notables

Jonas Bertheussen Weber, Emil Haugen - these promising CBs were already out on loan when I took over the club. With solid depth already at CB, they’ll remain on loan to hopefully get extended game time.

Einar Ness, Elias Egerton, Kent Malic Saleh - a fun trio of 18-year-old wingers! Saleh looks like the best of the bunch so far. All should get a bit of time this season; performance in training will likely determine who gets the first extended look.

 

[Sportsviking]

Fixtures and Results

A great start to the league campaign! We were never really challenged in any game, even the Gjovik-Lyn win wasn’t as close as the scoreline indicates. Three from three leaves us top of the table at the end of the first month.

Certainly not ideal for our club captain/best player to be out, but it’s only two weeks and we’re deep at CB. Not too worried and it will hand an opportunity to Sebastian Warvik to start a game or two.


Tactics

I did make a slight tactical tweak after watching the first few matches on “comprehensive highlights.” The wingbacks on support duty weren’t always offering enough passing outlets or forward runs so I switched both to an attack duty. So far it seems to be working at no cost to our defense.


Youth Update

Cool moment for the club! Like I keep saying, Celius is someone I hope to build the team around for years to come so this should be the first of many.

A great month of training from almost all of our young prospects. I’ve gone in and tweaked individual training for most of them and I’ll now start setting up training groups.

Einar Ness backed up his training form by coming on and scoring the winning goal in our season opener against Asker. Already looking to get him more minutes when possible.

 

[Sportsviking]

Realized I forgot to post the tactical setup in the preseason posts so here it is now.

I’ve decided to go with an aggressive approach because I believe we have one of the better squads in the league. The hope is to press high, win the ball back quickly, and then hold it while creating opportunities with our interchangeable front four. A narrow setup in possession as well as the two holding midfielders should offer multiple short passing options to keep the ball. Fullbacks will be relied on to provide width, their aggressiveness getting upfield hopefully offset by the two CMs on defend duty.

The only complex thing I’m going for is the false 9/shadow striker combo up top. My thought is with two inverted wingers, the striker coming back to the ball should create more space for the wingers to run into. Lovland is our best creator on the team and Lysvoll is one of our best players so hopefully they can make it work despite both being slightly out of their “best” positions.


Youth Update

I also forgot to include our two most exciting preseason signings!

Asgeir Eliassen is a young player with room to improve, but with the benefit of being ready now for first team soccer. His ability to play with either foot and cover the CDM position make him a valuable piece of the team who should see plenty of minutes.

Pedersen Winther is the result of a massive effort to scout all young Norwegian prospects. He was available on a free transfer and very interested in joining the club. We’ll see how he develops over the next 2 years.

Both guys help address the lack of midfield depth we had.

Jorgen Hammari is another promising youngster available on a free. He’ll join the club in a few months. If he develops, that would address some of the concerns I had with our long-term striker depth.

 

[Sportsviking]

Fixtures and Results

We remain unbeaten despite suddenly shipping a bunch of goals. We’re still dominating games in the right categories (xG, etc) so I’m not overly concerned about it. The Cup win over Svelvik was expected, but it was still great to see a rotated team stocked with younger players dominate like that.

We’re still top of the table and rolling along. Based on our form and talent, I’d be very disappointed to miss out on promotion this year.


Youth Update

Dovydas Zala

You’ll recall I wasn’t super high on Zala as a prospect, but he’s slowly winning me over with his training performance. He’s already upped his attributes in several key areas, and now he’s gotten a u21 call up. He’ll continue to get game time as our backup striker.

Sebastian Warvik

All of our young CBs, including those out on loan, are getting exponentially better. Warvick looks like he is on track to take over the LCB role from club captain VIbe in the next 2-3 years.

Kent Malic Swaleh

The most impressive youth player this month has been Kent Malic Swaleh. The young winger has increased his CA rating to three stars and looks ready for an increased role with the first team.

Ulrik Celius

And an Ulrik Celius update just because he continues to be my favorite young player we have haha!

 

[Sportsviking]

Norwegian Cup

We’d cruised through the first two rounds of the cup, but in the third round we drew Norwegian Premier Division side Strømsgodset for a daunting home tie. However, the match was our final fixture in June, with a three-week break before the league resumed at the end of July. So I decided to roll out a first-choice lineup and give it our best shot.

A wild, exciting, and ultimately encouraging loss. We outplayed the top division side for long stretches after our shocking start. I had to sub off both starting CBs due to a lack of fitness and ultimately I think that’s what did us in on the late goal. But we proved we can play with better teams - an encouraging sign if we’re promoted to the First Division next season.


Fixtures and Results

The rest of June was extremely encouraging as we stayed unbeaten and top of the table.

Our best result was the away draw against then second-place Levanger.

Down several key starters due to injury and suspension, we did what was needed to help our promotion bid.


Youth Update

A great start to the month locking down my favorite player to new, three-year contract.

I continue to be impressed with the rate of improvement from all of our young players. Emil Pedersen Winther has kind of come out of nowhere to become one of our best and I’ll be looking to ensure he gets more playing time - he’s clearly ready.

Malic Swaleh continues to perform well whenever he’s given a chance.

 

[Sportsviking]

Contracts

We start off July by re-signing a slew of players with six months left on their current deals. Much more successful this time around letting the General Manager negotiate some of these, while I handled a few of the key ones myself. Happy to see the Lysvoll brothers will likely finish out their careers at the club - they’ve been long-time servants and two of our best players this season.


Fixtures and Results

Quick month here with just two matches coming off the summer international break. Still unbeaten, still top of the table. However, there are some difficult fixtures awaiting us in August.


Youth Update

Usual suspects here, still on encouraging trajectories.

 

[Sportsviking]

August 2022

Fixtures and Results

Worst month of our season as we suffer our first two defeats of the campaign. I’ll put the Brattvag result fully on me - I got distracted, didn’t realize we were playing the team second in the table, and rotated the starting XI a bit. With a full-strength side I think we could’ve at least managed a draw. Luckily our rivals around us also dropped points so we stay in first place by a narrow margin.


Youth Update

The development of our young players continues to be fantastic across the board. My guy Celius has done nothing to calm the hype around him and I continue to get him minutes whenever I can.

Emil Pedersen Winther is the other player worth highlighting this month, as his continued impressive training performance has earned him a full-time starting role.


Transfers

Pedersen Winther’s ascension means Braathen was surplus to requirements. Getting another high salary off our books has to be seen as a win.

Arntsen was a depth piece who I didn’t plan on re-signing going into next season. Letting him go leaves us a little thin at outside back, but I’m still looking for a younger upgrade at the position.


Lookahead
We’re closing in on the stretch run of the season. Time to lock in promotion!

 

[Sportsviking]

September 2022

Short post here before the final stretch run of the season.

Great news to start the month. We know Vådebu is a stud at this point, the trick is holding on to him long enough.

Board obviously delighted as we’ve already smashed their conservative targets for the season.

I thought it’d be a smart time to ask the board to upgrade our youth recruitment, but alas. As a reminder, we’re still miles ahead of most clubs outside the top division sides with our youth setup.

Back to an undefeated month! We can wrap the title up in our next match if other results go our way.


Title chase finale coming up in the next post!

 

[Sportsviking]

October 2022

Going to structure this post a bit differently. With the title coming down to these final four games, I’ll go in chronological order of events so you can experience the title chase as I did!


Title chase

So it all comes down to this! Here’s how things sit as we head into the final four matches of the season.

*Oct fixtures preview

With an outside shot at clinching the title this first weekend, a team meeting is in order.

Tromsdalen v Eidsvold Turn

Brattvåg’s draw means we can’t clinch this weekend, but a win would still go a long way to putting us out of reach of our two rivals.

Havard Lysvoll is suspended due to yellow card accumulation so Johnsgård is the only change to our Eidsvold Turn starting XI.

An absolutely dominant performance! We control our own destiny next weekend.

Shoutout to Adrian Pedersen who bagged a brace in the win. He’s been excellent all season on the left wing.

Pedersen Winther’s role as a starter continues to help his development. His ceiling doesn’t look quite as high as we once thought, but he’s still a very good player who will be important to us for the next few years.


Another meeting.

Andreas Lovland is really not feeling these “the pressure’s off” messages!


Baerum v Tromsdalen

First choice XI fit and available for our Bærum match.

Pretty disastrous result with a chance to clinch the title. It looked so promising after that early goal, but we were played off the pitch in the second half and I didn’t hesitate to let the team know it.

We do, however, lock in at least second and a promotion playoff spot thanks to Brattvåg’s loss.

Will be interesting to see if the elections impact anything at the club.


Tromsdalen v Hødd

Certainly not ideal to lose our captain for such a massive match.

Levanger keep the pressure on.

Four-star CA now for Vådebu! Absolute beast.

Pulling out all the stops to get the boys fired up for this one!

Chase continued in the next post due to image limit!

 

[Sportsviking]

Tromsdalen v Hødd

Here we go! Once again, a win will make us champions while a loss or draw means we have to do it on the final day of the season against 2nd-place Levanger.

A reminder club captain Vibe is out so Sebastian Warvik steps in. This kid has been getting amazing praise from the coaches all season - time for him to prove it!
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What a start! We’re up 1-0 inside of a minute after club legend Lysvoll delivers once again!

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Penalty!!! Lysvoll is taken down after great work from Pedersen on the left to set him up. Andreassen will take…

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And he makes no mistake!!!!!!!!!!! Dream start!

Bringing on Ness and Sandbukt for some fresh legs

Pedersen Winther comes off because he’s on a yellow. Not taking any chances!!

WE’VE DONE IT!!!!

Just a phenomenal season, so pleased overall! I’ll play the youth team in our final match as it means nothing now.

Next post will wrap up the season and review our youth development initiative!

 

[Sportsviking]

SEASON WRAP

Season Wrap! We’ll go through all the news from the final days of the season and then take a deep dive into youth development.

Our final match of the season was chosen for a fan day. I rolled out a pretty young team, but also brought the fan favorites on late in the second half. Got an easy 3-1 win and the fans loved it! Hopefully that permanent attendance boost comes to fruition.

Pretty pleased with our signings this year. Skogvoll and Kongshavn were there before I joined the club, but were two of our most important players. Asgeir Eliassen developed nicely. We’ll touch on Emil Pedersen Winther in the youth update, but he was my best signing by far.

I think Vegard Lysvoll was by far our player of the season. Lead us in scoring and was central to the way we played. His brother, Harvard, did a great job as our first-choice LB (not sure why that’s not reflected in the Best XI). They’ll both be 33 next season, but I’m hoping they’ve got one more high-level year in them to help keep us up.

I tried to get the club to take the attacking and possession soccer out in case we have to go more conservative next season, but they wouldn’t budge. I’m actually okay with giving our positive approach a go in the First Division.


Season Youth Review

Okay time for the fun stuff! We’ll go through all our prospects and I’ll give a few thoughts on each.

Isak Vådebu

The pride of our academy. Vådebu came into the season already good enough to start and has only improved from there. Our coaches have long rated him as “potentially Premier Division Standard” and everything about his development backs that up. He’s locked down for 2 more seasons and I’ll be looking to extend that once our new budgets are set. Absolute cornerstone of the club at the moment and key to our survival next season.


Ulrik Celius

My personal favorite young player at the club. Celius improved throughout the year while rotating in for minutes whenever possible. I’m not sure yet what I’ll do with him next season. A loan would likely be very beneficial to his development, but I need to make sure we have the CM depth before we send him off.


Jonas Bertheussen Weber

Bertheussen Weber was one of the players already out on loan when I took over at the club. Because of that, I didn’t pay close attention to him outside of the regular loan reports I’d get from the scouting team. I knew he had potential, I knew he was playing and developing well on loan, but I completely missed he has Premier Division potential! I’m getting extremely excited about a potential Vådebu - Weber partnership leading us to the top division. Back from loan, Weber will definitely stay with the first team for next season. Club captain and LCB starter Tobias Vibe is aging a bit - I think there’s a chance we see that Vådebu - Weber pairing by midseason.


Sebastian Warvik

Warvik trained well the whole season and played well whenever he was called on. I think a loan is the best thing for him next season. A season of starting Second Division games at 17 is an exciting prospect.


Emil Haugen

Spent the season on loan like Weber. A more limited ceiling compared to our other young CBs, but the potential is definitely there. He’ll go back out on loan as he’s good enough to start games for a smaller team.


Emil Pedersen Winther

Pedersen Winther was the product of my preseason youth scouting efforts and he could not have turned out better. He quickly proved in training he was ready for minutes and won a starting spot by midseason. A key piece of our midfield moving forward who still has plenty of room to improve.


Einar Ness & Kent Malic Swaleh

I put these two together because they’re similar players at similar stages of their development. I go back and forth on which I think is better, but luckily they play on opposite wings and are perfect fits for our system. I hope to one day see them both in our Starting XI! As for next season, I think I may choose one to send out on loan and keep the other as a backup to both wing spots.


Dovydas Zala

You’ll recall I wasn’t really sold on Zala at the start of the season. His training performance has been encouraging and he’s a regular part of the Lithuanian youth setup. But I still worry he’s not truly elite in any one area. He’s not a dominating physical presence, his finishing is lower than it should be at this point in his career, and he’s not technically good enough to play a support role for our inverted wingers. I’m not giving up on him yet, but I think we need to loan him out and see what happens with an extended run of games.


So there you have it! I think overall we’re in a great spot with our young players at the club, especially at the CB position.

Next update will cover the youth intake and all the offseason news and notes.

 

[Sportsviking]

OFFSEASON 2022

Not sure what’s going on with this as we still have “excellent youth recruitment”

You absolutely love to see it! Hoping to get 1 or 2 players with Top Division potential

A name you might recognize due to their recent real-world success, Bodo/Glimt knock off HamKam to claim the Norwegian cup. Bodo is a great example of a club producing young Norwegians that we can strive for.

Nilsen was our backup keeper. He hit his potential, had no chance to start for us, and we have a younger keeper with a higher ceiling ready to go. Easy decision.

Could be interesting if the new chairperson injects some money to spend. I’ve found plenty of good transfer candidates, but we can’t offer near enough on the wage side to entice them.

Well that’s disappointing. We continue on!

Lots of contract decisions to make. I’ve instructed our General Manager to re-sign a few key players.

We’re in a much better spot financially heading into this season which is nice to see!

Flurry of extensions signed, including locking down two of our brightest young stars in Bertheussen Weber and Pedersen Winther.

You’ll remember we signed Hammari way back before the beginning of the season. He finally joins us now. I think he’s got an intriguing profile - I expect he’ll be our backup striker this season and we’ll send Zala out on loan.

Laughable offer for one of our best youngsters.

No surprise as we had an exciting league campaign and won promotion, but still good to see!

Not sure how valuable this link will be, but it’s a good fallback option for loans I guess.

And with that we’ve officially hit preseason!

 

[Sportsviking]

PRESEASON 2023

Season 2 is underway!

Transfers

Warvik heads out on loan as planned. I would’ve liked to have found him a second division loan, but the third division seemed fine for our loanees last year.

Zala also leaves on loan to a Lithuanian club. Interested to see how he gets on as a full-time starter.

Laugsand was surplus to requirements with all the good young CBs we have. Happy to get his contract off the books.


After this we went to work raiding neighboring Tromso. I couldn’t believe so many of their young players wanted to join us. That club stature increase must be working; players who had zero interest in a transfer last season are now ready to sign for reasonable deals.

Daniel Bassi

Daniel Bassi is already near the level of our best winger Skogvoll, rated at Premier Division PA, and a perfect fit for our system. He may actually start on the left at some point this season.

Thomas Bjørgve

Thomas Bjorgve is another high-rated young winger who can play anywhere across the front four.

Both should be with the first team this season, which likely means Einar Ness and Kent Malic Swaleh will head out on loan to get game time.

Disgusting. I would’ve been okay accepting a truly fair offer, but for the board to take this is just stupid. We at least get the loan-back for this season. I thought this might eventually happen, but to get almost nothing for our best young player is so frustrating. Hopefully we get a chance to buy him back in the future.

Youth Intake | 2023

The youth intake quickly helped ease the sting of the Vadebu loss.

Gotta love the Golden Generation talk! All will be given contracts and play with the 2 team this season.

A closer look at our new homegrowns:


Roar Falch

Falch is undoubtedly the best of the bunch for this intake. He’s already got impressive pace and quickness so we can focus on developing his technical ability.


Espen Haugen

Espen Haugen looks the part of a solid holding midfielder. I don’t know that he’ll ever be a true difference-maker, but I think he can develop into a borderline starter or important squad player.


Mathias Tandberg

Mathias Tandberg is who I’m most excited about. I’ve talked about our need for striker depth and this kid comes in at 15 with pace, quickness, and a 12 already in finishing. The 14 in leadership could also signal a future club captain. If Zala doesn’t tear it up on loan, this could be it for him at the club.


Eivind Breivik

Breivik actually has decent looking attributes in most categories. We’ll focus train a few of his weaker areas and perhaps he can be a reliable No. 2 keeper.


Rune Thune

Thune doesn’t come in quite as highly rated as some of our other wingers, but he’s got great pace and we can work with that.


Terje Haaland

We certainly have enough wingers at the club! Haaland has good physical stats and some surprising technical quality. Interested to see how he develops.


Eirik Isaksen

Isaksen is no Vadebu, but that’s probably an unfair comparison. We’re stocked with young, promising CBs so Isaksen will have to fight for any chance in the first team. Seems destined for loans after a few years.

Overall a great intake! I’m thinking I’ll retrain a few of these wingers into a wingback position. We need options there long term, so they’ll have a better shot at getting on the field that way.

Next Post will cover our preseason results, any additional transfers, and depth chart for the season.

 

[Sportsviking]

PRESEASON 2023

Preseason rolls on!

Antonsen arrives on a free as cover for both fullback spots. Not thrilled with his salary, but he should be good quality for us for the next two seasons.

Malic Swaleh heads out on loan as planned. Hoping to see him make a big jump this season and return ready to fight for a starting spot

No surprise the bookies have us as relegation candidates.

Vik is yet another Tromso player joining us. Couldn’t get a future fee agreed, but I’m hoping I can work out a permanent transfer at the end of the season.


Here’s how our depth chart shakes out after the transfer window closed.

It’s time to turn to the kids in a few key spots. I went into the charting process prepared to start Lovland and Pedersen another year, but it became clear Bjorgve and Bassi are ready now. No reason to delay their first team minutes.

Jonas Abrahamsen spent last year on loan, developed extremely well, and returned a better-rated player than Gudmund Kongshavn, our starter from last season. Excited to see what Jonas can do between the sticks this season.

I also suspect Weber will be starting sooner rather than later at LCB.

Disappointed I couldn’t find loans for Ness or Haugen after they rejected going on loan to our lower-division affiliate. They’ll play this season for the 2 team.

And last but not least: our friendlies!

I

played as many as I could to bring in some extra income and make sure the entire squad was match fit to kick off the season.

Time to see if we can hack it in the First Division!

 

[Sportsviking]

APRIL 2023

Curious to see how we get on this year. I think we have enough quality to stay up, but it’ll be a fight for sure.

Tactics remain unchanged, at least to start the season. I may tweak the overall mentality to be a bit less aggressive if we’re struggling to defend.


Fixtures and Results

Honestly shocked how good we’ve been to start the season, although I think having three of our first five matches at home helped. I don’t think we’ll have a problem avoiding relegation, but I’m still skeptical we’re a true playoff side. If we can keep the home form up, we can definitely make a run at it!

We broke our attendance record for the derby against Tromso! Great to see our gate receipts increasing, albeit slowly.


Youth Update

Brutal for Haaland who must deal with a serious injury less than a month into his professional career. Hopefully his PA won’t be too affected long-term.

Jonas Abrahamsen

Our young keeper has been stellar since we handed him the No. 1 No. 30 shirt.


Mathias Tandberg

Tandberg has played well for the 2 team. Hoping his passing improves so he can one day play the false 9/deep-lying forward role.

Bassi, Bjørgve, and Pedersen Winther have all proven they deserve to be starting. Bjørgve in particular has been so, so good. Hopefully a full season of first-team soccer accelerates their development.


Last quick note - we actually turned a small profit in April. A great sign after I spent every last penny of the transfer budget.

 

[Sportsviking]

MAY 2023


Fixtures and results

Unbelievable month. We went top of the table with the win over Raufoss and then stayed there after a credible away draw with Ranheim. I was optimistic we’d avoid relegation, but we actually look like we might be in a title fight!! We’re giving up a lot of goals, but I think that’s the nature of the style we’re playing combined with the inexperience we have.

Our cup win was such a fun game. With a big gap in the fixture list, I decided to roll out our first team to see how we measured up to one of the best teams in the Norwegian Premier League.

We hung in well for 90 minutes before conceding midway through the first extra time period. But the boys responding the the second half of extra time, capped off by a stunning Skogvoll free kick to win it!

The performance leaves me very positive about our future - several of our key young players had a great game.


New Contract

The board was understandably eager to negotiate a new deal, as my current contract was set to expire in a year. I extended for the maximum three years - though I intend to be here much longer!


Youth Update

We continue to build out our youth setup with 3 additional signings. I went through and scouted every regen after the youth intake; 99% were uninterested in joining us, but these three were!

Kristian Holsbø

Kristian Holsbø is definitely the most exciting of the trio. He has the look of someone who can fill our shadow striker role. His current club, Senja, requested a loan back which is actually a great situation for him to keep getting game time.


Vegard Mathisen

Mathisen won’t wow anyone, but he has solid attributes in key areas. CMs aren’t asked to do a lot in our system so I think he could end up being a useful player.


Jan Skeie

Skeie is up against it to work his way through our depth chart of promising young CBs, but I’ll give him a few years with our training facilities and the the 2 team, and then see where he’s at.


Daniel Bassi & Jorgen Hammari

Bassi, meanwhile, continues to look like a smash signing. He’s delivered from match one as the starter. Hammari also looks like a good signing. He’s performed well in limited minutes off the first team bench. At this point I’m really hoping we can get to the top division in the next two years to make sure we hold on to all these guys.


It’s not all good, however.

Zala’s loan has not gone great with a single goal in 10 games, and now he’s set to miss significant time with this injury. Really looking like it’s just not going to happen for him.

 

[Sportsviking]

JUNE 2023


Fixtures and Results

Our worst month of the season and I’ll place the blame squarely on myself

I rotated the squad for Kongsvinger in preparation for our Cup match. I didn’t realize Kongsvinger had climbed to second in the table, making that one of the most important league games of the season. We were always up against it with Brann, but I wanted to see how we stacked up. We actually played decently well, trailing 2-1 late in the match. They hit us for two on the counter as we pushed for an equalizer.

That all would’ve been fine except we lost Pedersen Winther to injury, and still had some fitness concerns going into our Fredrikstad match.

Pretty much sums it up.

Despite the winless run, we’re still in an incredible spot. Three points off automatic promotion, tied for the best goal differential, and four points clear of the relegation zone. We’ll regroup!

Feel bad for Lovland as he was such a key player in last season’s promotion. But he’s been surpassed by the club’s young stars and I can’t justify him taking minutes from them. I’ll look to sell him when the transfer window reopens.


Youth update

What in the world are we doing to these kids in training?!

At least it’s mostly good news on the youth front!

I’d been waiting to see how Hammari developed before giving him a new contract, but he’s undoubtedly earned one at this point.

The sharks are circling now for my other talented CB. Need to get promoted ASAP so we can hold onto these guys!

Another solid financial month! We’re slowly eliminating the debt.

 

[Sportsviking]

JULY 2023

We start off with a few contract decisions. All easy ones here.

Hammari’s new deal gets done.

Abrahamsen had been making noise about leaving at the end of his deal, so he gets a slight pay bump and an extension.

On a related note…

Would’ve liked to keep Kongshavn for depth, but there’s not much to be done if he wants to leave. We’ll need to find a new backup keeper, perhaps in this coming transfer window.

Officially done. Henrik Andreassen was surplus and I’d been trying to offload him for a while.


Fixtures and Results

Back on track! We’re hanging in the playoff race even if automatic promotion looks like it’s no longer on the cards. Most importantly, we’re now well clear off the relegation zone.

I started experimenting with a more conservative approach for our tougher matches. So far it seems to be working.


Youth update

This sucks. Haugen was showing real potential and this injury will undoubtedly set him back.

Breivik now elevated to the No. 2 keeper role. He’s promising, but nowhere close to ready. I absolutely need a backup keeper.

Youth teams looking very good right now.

 

[Sportsviking]

AUGUST 2023

Simultaneously one of my best and one of my most frustrating months of the save so far.

No need to push it as the increases in transfers/wage budgets aren’t significant


Fixtures and Results

We’re absolutely back on form! From six winless to six unbeaten including a massive win over second-place Mjøndalen to go top of the table! We now face second-place Tromsø in a derby match.


Tromsdalen vs Tromsø | August 2023

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Unfortunately we’ll be missing both starting CBs due to card accumulation. Which would be hard enough without this…

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Board is out of their minds to accept this. Same bull**** as the Vadebu sale. And to make it worse, he rejects a loan back to us for the rest of the season. We sold two Premier Division quality CBs for a combined $70k. This is getting really frustrating.

Tromsø, meanwhile is on quite a run of their own. Definitely about to be the match of the season!

Sebastian Warvik gets an emergency recall from his loan to start. Hoping I can loan him right back out after the game if needed.

Here’s how we line up for the match.

An ugly game, but a brilliant result! Warvik and Haugen were immense stepping in for our normal starters.

The draw means Tromsø stay top while we’re just a single point behind.

Transfers

Andreassen was great for our promotion campaign last season, but he was surpassed this year by multiple players in midfield.

Håvard Lysvoll is a borderline club legend so I'd like him to retire here. But he's just not quite up to First Division standard. A loan let us keep him around for a potential retirement in the future

Youth Update

The three youngsters we signed a few months ago join us. As a reminder, Holsbo heads straight back to his club on a loan-back agreement.

Meanwhile, Mathias Tandberg creeps closer and closer to being ready for the first team.