The history of Bodø/Glimt, the Norwegian miracle that challenges Tottenham in the Europa League

A former combat pilot who flew missions in Libya and Afghanistan revolutionized football in a small town north of the Arctic Circle. This Thursday, from 16, Tottenham will face the Norwegian Club Bodø/Glimt by the first leg of the semifinals of the Europa League. The meeting will be historical for the Scandinavian team, which competes in the The elite seriesthe highest category of Norwegian football and will seek to give the great blow to one of the English giants.

It is that its arrival in such an instance of the Cup does not turn out to be nonsense. With an amazing story behind, the Norwegian club, little known and a small town north of the Arctic Circleenjoyed a transformation in recent years promoted by Bjørn Mannsverka combat pilot who developed mental techniques for his squad before Bombing in Libya.

Mannsverk, an ex -leader of the Norwegian Real Air Force squad whose military tasks took him to Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks and Libya for an intervention led by NATO in 2011, was the “mental coach” who, since his arrival at the club in early 2017, was in charge of changing the chip to Bodø/Glimt, just descended to the Second Division of Norway and exposed to “a collective mental collapse”.

What was your homework? Make the players openly discuss their feelings, reduce stress levels, change their attitudes and routines about things such as preparation and nutrition, and eliminate stigma around mental training. The project consisted of following the philosophy and culture established by Mannsverk. The results were fascinating, as they remain.

After achieving the promotion to the highest category, a glorious string hit the renewed Bodø/Glimt: they won 4 of the last 5 league titles in the country, being the last in 2024. “It’s a fairy tale, almost a miracle”said the former pilot to combat The Associated Press in a video interview.

“How can you really move from the Second Division of Norway in 2017 to play a playoff of the Champions League and face teams like Arsenal five years later? But I think it is possible … if you have the right mentality and work hard over time”he added.

The wisdom that Mannsverk transmitted to the players, which he had learned as part of a mental training project in 2010 focused on meditation, was accepted and used by the technical director Kjetil Knutsen when he took office in 2018. “I don’t think it would be possible to play like this without bjørn and the mental work we do”The Norwegian midfielder Ulrik Saltnes assured the BBC.

The great promoter of the novel mentality that catapulted Bodø/Glimt to the great competitions, stressed that “philosophy is good” and that they are passionate about telling their history to the world. “We know that it is difficult in football, where there is so much money involved, give a coach or a team time. And time is needed to change and instill the mentality. This was not done overnight … but I am totally convinced that it will work more or less everywhere “hill.

In the round of 16, the team led by Kjetil Knutsen displaced Olympiacos with a 4-2 global and agreed to the rooms, where Lazio fights and after a global 3-3 forced the Norwegian team to undergo a batch of decisive penalties in which he beat 3-2.

Now, the Tottenham, which has the Argentine in its ranks Cristian Vacation Romerois the next Bodø/Glimt opponent. The English club is going through a season more than gray and is in 16th place in the Premier League, made up of 20 teams.

This gives the Norwegian team a realistic opportunity to surprise, as he already did in the previous instances. In this first leg, which will be played in England, the probable crowd of almost 63,000 people at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for Thursday’s game will be larger than the Bodø population, the city where the club originated.

The premier league team coach, Ange postcogloufaced Bodø/Glimt twice, both in charge of Celtic. He never managed to keep the victory. Despite the bad drinks, the Australian technical director recognized in the previous party this Thursday the “Very clear identity” of the Norugego club.

“I think they have created a true resilience in the group, a mental resilience that regardless of who they play, either in the Norwegian league or in the qualifiers of the Champions League or in Europe or Conference League, treat each opponent in the same way “he explained.