Bodo/Glimt have survived dark days and now they’re relishing Man United trip

When Havard Sakariassen talks about the dark days, he is referring to the difficult times at Bodo/Glimt and not to the Norwegian winter when the sun does not rise for months and the northern lights can be seen from the club's Aspmyra Stadium, 190 kilometers north of the city. Arctic Circle.

The time when there was about as much chance of encountering a real troll as at Manchester United in Europe.

Such as in 2006, when Sakariassen was sold to rivals Bryne mid-season to help pay the bills, amid the threat of forced relegation. Or 2011, when he hung up his boots in the middle of a second-tier campaign and joined the backroom staff at another time of crisis.

“I was old and not that good,” admits Sakariassen, now the club's sporting director. 'I left the dressing room and went upstairs. At the time the club was in such poor circumstances that we had no kit manager. We washed our training gear at home and came to training already dressed. When we played, home and away, we didn't have anyone to wash the jerseys.

'That was the situation at Bodo/Glimt in 2011. Suddenly we hit a wall. There was no money and we had to survive.

“There was one person working for the A-team that fall. That was me. That meant we didn't have a kitman. I was the kit man.

“If you compare that to our current resources, it's insanely different.”

Bodo/Glimt were traditionally a yo-yo team in Norway, struggling to stay afloat – especially in the 1980s, when they spent 11 years outside the top flight, three of them in the third division.

Even recently, midfielder Ulrik Saltnes recalls the team having to travel to away matches on domestic flights, with long distances often connecting via Oslo.

“If you take a bus or train from Northern Norway, you are a very patient man,” Saltnes smiles. 'The nearest bus journey to a team would take about eight hours. We have done all the travel by plane, but there is a very big difference between now and having to go through Oslo at inopportune hours.

'Now we charter our own plane. We travel when we deem it necessary to better prepare for the games. In the past it was only about economics.

'I can't really imagine what it was like because everything was so much smaller. It's been quite a journey, especially from 2019 where we suddenly went from a team bouncing around the leagues to a stable top team and then entering Europe.

'A normal day and a normal year for a footballer now, compared to when I was young, are two different worlds.'

A one-club man, Saltnes has been at the forefront of a revival that has seen Bodo/Glimt win three titles in the last four years (a fourth could follow on Sunday) and, at the age of 32, is regarded as a club legend.

In Europe they have had to deal with the likes of Arsenal and AC Milan. When Roma traveled to the northwest coast of Norway in the 2021 European Conference, Jose Mourinho's side were humiliated 6-1.

After the two sides met in the quarter-finals, Bodo/Glimt won again in the first leg in Aspmyra, but a seething Mourinho took revenge in Italy.

“I don't think he liked the first few times we met,” Saltnes adds. “By the fourth game he had turned half of Rome into literally hating us. It was quite an atmosphere. On the bus ride I couldn't go 10 yards without someone yelling and turning us around on the way to the game; grandmothers and children and everyone. He had a pretty good job there. We got destroyed in the fourth game.”

For all Bodo/Glimt's progress, a Europa League match against Manchester United in what will be new head coach Ruben Amorim's first game at Old Trafford on Thursday evening may be the biggest occasion of all.

Although United will be big favourites, they are three places below opponents who have already beaten FC Porto and Braga in the league this season and are in twelfth place.

“It's going to be a huge challenge,” says Saltnes. “It will also be the first home game for the new coach, and I think statistically this might be the worst game you can have.

'We are going to see a very different Manchester United, a more competitive one. They will play in a simpler way, more of a 3-4-3. They will improve immediately.

“We'll come in as huge underdogs, I think. Ultimately, I hope we can just enjoy the occasion and the game and then move on. We don't worry too much about the results, not in this game, not really.

“It will probably be the same kind of challenge [as Arsenal in 2022]. But as a Norwegian I would say that Martin Odegaard is just different. They don't have Odegaards at Manchester United.'

There is no big cash injection behind Bodo/Glimt's rise from a small family club to champions of Norway. No wealthy benefactors here. The club's budget may have quadrupled since 2017, but it still stands at just £21 million without additional income from player sales.

The Aspmyra Stadium has a capacity of 8,270, slightly more than the 6,500 fans who make the trip to Manchester and represent 12 percent of the city's 55,000 residents.

They are known as 'fishing hippies' because of the Skrei cod fishery in Bodo, and the club's symbol is a yellow toothbrush. Don't ask.

And if you were wondering about the slash between Bodo and Glimt (which translates as Flash), it replaced a hyphen that caused confusion on betting slips and printed score lines.

Its success is based on solid recruitment of Scandinavian players, nurturing home-grown talent and sensible sales.

“It is important that when scouting players we look at their football qualities, but also look at people,” says Sakariassen. 'So we are working on culture at Bodo/Glimt and that is probably why the team looks like this, because it is mainly Norwegian and Danish guys.

“We really believe we can get the potential out of the players we have here, as individuals and as a team, it's huge. If you can build a great team, you can go a long way.

'Maybe I'm naive, but in one game like Thursday we can compete against Manchester United and put in a great performance at Old Trafford. But in the long term we will no longer be able to catch up financially against these clubs.'

However, there are still logistical issues when playing in Norway. Being in Europe for the fifth year in a row means that Bodo/Glimt will once again be playing well past the end of the domestic season, which ends on Sunday, when Kjetil Knutsen's side could win another title by beating Lillestrom .

“We play not only until Christmas, but also after Christmas in Europe, so there is no break for us and that is a bit strange,” says Sakariassen.

Bodo/Glimt will then spend a large part of the three months from January to March training in Spain to escape the darkness and freezing temperatures at home.

He adds: 'If you go here in winter until the end of December around Christmas and January, the sun doesn't rise, so it's dark everywhere for 24 hours. Even if you live here for a long time, it is quite tough.

'To put it on the positive side, the summers are really great here because we have sun all night long. It is a spectacular place on earth. Nature is crazy here. If you're not used to this, for example if you're from Manchester and go to Bodo in the summer, it's a great place.”

Yet Sakariassen dreamed of Manchester; from the legendary music scene of the 90s and from United.

'English football is very big in Norway, and in the 1990s everyone had an English team. “A lot of us, including myself, were heavily supporting Man United,” he said.

'Personally, they were the defining years of my life because I was between 15 and 22. Manchester was the coolest place on earth for me because of the music and the football team. If you ask 20-year-old Havard, it would be surreal to go to Old Trafford with Bodo/Glimt.

'Of course it's something I deal with every day today and we've been around for a few years, but it's still special for me to go to Old Trafford.

“It's hard to think about what we're actually accomplishing because I feel like we're in the middle of a hurricane every day. Maybe it's time to think about these things when we get old and do something else.

'It's great to see the impact the club has in Bodo, in the north of Norway, but also in Norway. For me as a Bodo/Glimt boy it is really very special.'