Glance over the stellar lineup of groups within the Champions League’s spherical of 16 this week and you will find most of the super-rich aristocrats of European soccer: Real Madrid, Liverpool, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester City and extra. And then there’s Bodo/Glimt. This homely and humble membership from a fishing city of round 55,000 folks in northern Norway should not actually be mixing with Europe’s powerhouse golf equipment. Well, they’re — and never simply that, they’re beating all of them.
Check out this four-win streak that has gotten Bodo/Glimt to the knockout stage of Europe’s prime membership competitors: 3-1 at house to Man City, 2-1 away to Atletico Madrid, after which home-and-away victories over Inter Milan — final season’s runner-up — within the playoffs that happened throughout Norwegian soccer’s offseason.
Next up is Portuguese champion Sporting Lisbon within the first leg of the final 16 on Wednesday.
Here’s what to know in regards to the tiny membership delivering the feelgood story of this or any Champions League marketing campaign:
Bodo is situated above the Arctic Circle, greater than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) north of the Norwegian capital, Oslo. Nestled alongside the western shoreline off the Norwegian Sea, it’s farther north than soccer’s prime membership competitors has ever beforehand been.
The city — which has its personal airport — has lower than an hour of daylight throughout its shortest days, that means gamers take dietary supplements to fight a scarcity of solar.
It will be bitterly chilly and windy within the lengthy winters however the locals are via the newest one. The forecast temperature for kickoff in opposition to Sporting is 3 Celsius (37 Fahrenheit).
Away from soccer, Bodo gained some reputation in 2024 when it was named the European Capital of Culture.
Bodo/Glimt’s Aspmyra stadium has a capability of round 8,000 spectators, hardly constructed for internet hosting massive matches in Europe’s prime membership competitors.
A brand new stadium — the ten,000-seat Arctic Arena — is being constructed on the sting of city however is not a lot greater.
Adding to the quirky really feel of the Aspmyra is the actual fact it has a synthetic discipline, which is criticized by some in soccer for the best way the ball rolls and bounces compared to grass.
UEFA permits accredited synthetic pitches for use as much as and together with the semifinals of its competitions.
Founded in 1916, Bodo/Glimt needed to wait greater than a century earlier than being topped Norwegian champion for the primary time — and the change in fortune had a lot to do with hiring a former fighter pilot.
The crew had simply been relegated to Norway’s second tier — underling its standing as an “elevator club,” because it’s known as in Norway, for going forwards and backwards between the highest two divisions — when Bjørn Mannsverk was requested in early 2017 to affix the backroom employees as a psychological coach.
Mannsverk had developed strategies for his squadron earlier than bombing missions in Libya and he introduced a philosophy and tradition at Bodo/Glimt that made gamers discuss overtly about their emotions, change their attitudes and routines about issues like preparation and diet, and take away the stigma round psychological coaching.
The gamers and coach Kjetil Knutsen absolutely purchased into Mannsverk’s methods — like, for instance, having a rotating forged of captains to share management duties and gathering in a circle after conceding a aim to debate what occurred and preserve solidarity — and it has helped the crew develop.
Bodo/Glimt gained its first Norwegian league title in 2020 and captured three of the following 5, ending runner-up final yr. The crew’s success transferred to continental competitors because it reached the Europa League semifinals final season — dropping to Tottenham over two legs — after which certified for the Champions League for the primary time.
Bodo/Glimt is not funded by a Middle Eastern sheikh or American personal funding so its inexpensively assembled squad is crammed with largely unheralded gamers from Norway and Denmark.
In Norway’s most up-to-date squad choice, there have been solely two Bodo/Glimt gamers known as up.
Its star striker is Kasper Høgh, a 25-year-old Dane who has by no means performed for his nation. Its different main attacker is Jens Petter Hauge, who returned to Bodo/Glimt in 2024 — 4 years after leaving for AC Milan however failing to ascertain himself.
Under Knutsen, who joined in 2018 and has masterminded the crew’s rise, Bodo/Glimt is not only a plucky underdog that sits again and defends. It is a free-flowing, high-intensity, attacking crew which, for instance, outplayed Man City when Pep Guardiola’s crew visited Aspmyra stadium.
In 2017, Bodo/Glimt had round 40 workers and a 4.2 million-euro ($5 million) funds.
Last yr, the membership’s income was 80 million euros ($93 million), boosted by making greater than 26 million euros ($30 million) within the Europa League after which earnings from the Champions League. Compare that to Real Madrid, whose 2025 income was greater than 1 billion euros, in line with Deloitte.
It is budgeting for 50 million euros ($58 million) in 2026, although that determine will improve the deeper the crew will get within the Champions League.
If Bodo/Glimt was to create extra historical past and get previous Sporting, it will face both Premier League chief Arsenal or Bayer Leverkusen, the German champion from the 2023-24 season, within the quarterfinals.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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