A flying visit may not always be the best way to truly experience somewhere you’ve never been before. But for the short 24 hours that FourFourTwo spent in Norway, it was more than enough to get an understanding of the passion, commitment and people that are driving the nation’s footballing potential above and beyond.
Nestled amongst the many mountains and fjords on Norway’s southwest coast, Bergen has always had a reputation for doing things slightly differently. “We’re always looking to the west,” was our taxi driver’s defining quote when explaining, upon our airport arrival, how merely observing the ocean and all the worldly possibilities beyond the horizon was a nod to the collective mindset of the city, whose inhabitants doesn’t always follow the rest of the country in looking south towards the capital of Oslo for inspiration and opportunity.
It’s this ethos that Brann Kvinner, SK Brann’s Women’s side, seem to have running through their club, seen with their commitment to promoting young players over big signings and their bold decision to give young Englishman Martin Ho his first senior role in management. Visiting the club and speaking with the former Everton, Liverpool and Man United Women’s assistant manager was our first port of call.
“I’m brave enough to give young players a chance, I’m brave enough to give them opportunity,” said Martin, emphasizing how much the club relies on their youth prospects and how much of a deal breaker it was in his first conversations with the club, “If we have an ethos of developing our own, we need a strategy and academy underneath us to do that - so that’s in place now.”
When you couple this with the high-pressing, energetic, style of play he demands from his team, it’s no wonder they left a big mark during their maiden Champions League campaign, falling valiantly at the quarter-final stage last year to eventual winners Barcelona.
So impressive was their foray into the competitions later stages, that numerous players have already moved on to bigger sides in Europe, something that Martin says is all part of developing and coaching such a talented group:
“There’s so much interest from the big teams in Europe and there’s only so much you can do [to keep them], but it then gives an opportunity to another young player again.”
All this talk of high-quality football naturally caught our attention, so the FourFourTwo team decided to take in a game and see if the proof was in the pudding - which it most definitely was.
A 3-0 victory against Stabæk kept them at the top of the table and only further served to convince us that the manager and the club were onto something here, something that could take them right to the very top.
As our time in Bergen would reveal to us, it was this theme of being different - being the underdogs - that defines the club and the community. Not only are SK Brann pushing for success on the pitch, but even local businesses like FotMob – now one of the world’s leading football apps, which began as a Bergen local’s hobby after he couldn’t check scores on his honeymoon in Thailand – reflect the city’s deep-rooted football passion.
It’s not just Brann Kvinner though who are pushing the limits of what can be achieved, as Norwegian success stories have become more frequent than ever in recent years, evidenced by Bodø/Glimt’s run to the semi-finals of the Europa League this season, further than any Norwegian side have ever gone in European competitions.
On an individual level, world-class players are also being developed at an astonishing rate, further benefitting the national teams performance and their respective club’s finances when the wealthier teams from across the continent look north for their transfer window shopping.
The 2018 Women’s Ballon d’Or winner Ada Hegerberg has spent the last decade setting European records and putting together the sort of honours list that will keep her amongst the ‘Great Of All Time’ debate for generations to come, whilst Erling Haaland has followed suit in the Men’s game with his goalscoring exploits reaching absurd levels.
The Manchester City forward, along with fellow Premier League star Martin Odegaard, have formed an integral part of a Norwegian national team that look destined to compete at next year’s World Cup, in what would be their first finals appearance since 1998.
In the last of our 24 hours FourFourTwo spent in Bergen, as we pieced together our new found footballing knowledge of the area, there was a sense of something bubbling up underneath the surface, feelings representative of a new era, a new footballing identity ready to engulf the city in its entirety, something that, like the cable car taking us up the famous Mount Fløyen, could see Norwegian football headed right to the very top.
