Bodø/Glimt showed how a miracle can be done in football

Imaginethat the world’s second most expensive football club will land in Rovaniemi in January. Millionaires hang out in center court and marvel at the artificial turf. The sky offers an eye-popping aurora display.

The anthem of the Champions League starts from Ämyrei, after which the local Palloseura kicks the öky crew into the ground. The guests’ biggest star apologizes after the match.

This happened on Tuesday in Norway, even further north than Rovaniemi. RoPS was replaced by Bodø/Glimt, who slaughtered Manchester City 3–1. The readings were kind to the visiting team.

54 000 in the tiny 8,000-seat Aspmyra stadium in the resident Bodø, down jackets rustled and leather gloves clattered as one of the most legendary football nights of the 2020s was seen on the field.

Now, if ever, spirit triumphed over matter.

City manager Pep Guardiola didn’t come to the arctic circle to rest his stars, but put a return to his homeland in the opening Erling Haalandin and many other stars.

City has paid 329 million euros in transfer fees for the starting line-up of the evening. The team’s Transfermarkt value is 1.3 billion euros – 23 times that of its opponent.

in the 21st century Bodø/Glimt, which has suffered from severe financial difficulties, has advanced to the league stage of the Champions League and won the Norwegian championships, because it has had to think carefully about the fate of each of its euros. In the background, there is no pohatta who has acquired a fun hobby for himself.

The money has been invested in more permanent resources, such as coaches and scouts. Thanks to that, Bodø/Glimt has sold its players abroad for millions.

In the City win, no less than nine players from the starting line-up of Bodø/Glimt and every one of the four substitutes on the field were domestic. The amount deserves the humblest praise. In such a strategy, every decision must be logical and long-term.

Far too many Finnish clubs should follow the example of Bodø/Glimt.

As if the contrast between the heroes of the arctic circle playing the last match of their lives and the spiritless golden pig club hit hard on the eyes in Aspmyra’s winter evening.

The Bodø/Glimt players’ takeovers were not always eye-catching, but the restrictions were replaced by a primitive throw-in, which City’s spiritless stars marveled at from the sidelines.

Only a little over a year ago, chosen as the best player in the world, drifted into a cycle of injuries Rodri looked like an old man from the wooden log team on the artificial turf and flew into the shower after being twice late for the situation.

The match after, an apologetic Haaland stood in frustration as City’s stalwarts fumbled the ball outside Bodø/Glimt’s tight defensive formation.

When Bodø/Glimt seized the ball, it roared forward with irresistible force. As though Russell Crowen a character Gladiator– movie would have declared in the booth: “When I give the signal, let the hell out.”

When David’s perfect game plan, mental fortitude and giving his all meets Goliath, who is already in a downward spiral, this can happen in football.

Pep Guardiola has been considered the most merciless self-flagellant. The night after the game was definitely spent trying to figure things out. Even he had never experienced such an arctic peat sauna before Tuesday.