Midweek madness in the Tippeliga! While you’re waiting for a certain Champions League semi-final to kick off, why not sit back and watch some players who don’t make more in a week than you do in a year? It’s fun, we promise..
Wednesday
Sandefjord (4th) – Viking (5th)
Have Viking turned a corner ? This will be a decent test, as Patrick Walker’s Sandefjord have proved that they are well capable of punching above their weight. According to fresh statistics, both these teams have a spectacularly inefficient striker on their books. Figures published in today’s VG show that, taking this and last season into account, Viking’s Peter “What am I doing again? Oh, look, some grass and a ball” Ijeh scores about once every 897th minutes. Sandefjord’s Admir “who?” Rascic isn’t much sharper, the random forward hasn’t found the net yet in 442 minutes of Tippeliga football.
Away win
Start (2nd) – Lillestrøm (16th)
“The Fixture List Can Be a Bitch part 1: Southern Discomfort”, starring Henning Berg’s misfiring Lillestrøm and Knut Tørum’s swashbuckling Start. Yep yep, when things aren’t going your way, what you really don’t want right now is to play the number one form-team in the league, away from home no less. And it doesn’t help Lillesetsøm that the poor unfortunate left-back who has to try to keep Christian Bolanos under control this round is 17 year old Stian Ringstad (who seems like a promising lad, but come on).
Home win
Strømsgodset (14th) – Aalesund (9th)
It’s unfortunate because we really like him here at NFN, but Ronny Deila is having a really rather bad time of it at Strømsgodset. After last round’s defeat to Sandefjord he told the media that “our first touch was bad”, which is a very strange thing to attribute a defeat to. Anyway, they’ll need more than good first touches to get past an Aalesund-side who are presumably eager to avenge a downright awful performance against local rivals Molde at the weekend.
Away win
Bodø/Glimt (15th) – Stabæk (12th)
When Bodø/Glimt brought in Trond Fredrik Ludvigsen from his lucrative exile in Brann’s reserves (incredibly, the Bergen-based plonkers were paying him an excess of 1million NOK a year), the idea was that he would replace Trond “10 goals and 12 assists” Olsen. According to those figures VG came out with, Ludvigsen last scored in 2005. Top top research there by the Northerners.
Draw
Molde (2th) – Vålerenga (13th)
“The Fixture List Can Be a Bitch Part 2: Mad Martin’s Lament”, starring an increasingly desperate Martin Andresen and Kjell Jonevret’s magnificent Molde. The Vålerenga-fans have made it clear that a defeat here won’t be tolerated, which is a problem for poor Martin because, well, Molde are quite good and Vålerenga are poo.
Home win
Lyn (11th) – Rosenborg (1st)
In their three home games this season Lyn have scored a grand total of one goal. That is awful, and against an underwhelming but still top of the league Rosenborg they’ll have to do a lot better. Big shiny alarm bells are ringing really rather frantically at Lyn, who in addition to being pretty bad at football need to somehow raise 10million from player-sales this season. Just how that is going to happen is anyone’s guess at this point.
Away win
Thursday
Fredrikstad (10th) – Tromsø (7th)
Last season’s two big overperformers have been hauled forcibly back to the ground this season. Tromsø built much of their success on a near impregnable defense last season, but inexplicably this season that same defense has been as tight as Davy Wathne’s grip on sanity (“It’s a clearance!”?).
Fredrikstad’s problems are rather more intricate, including stuff like a lack of strikers who know where the goal is, aging players growing slower by the minute (I’m looking at you mr. Wehrman), a lack of quality wingers, contracts expiring and so on. If only they had a sporting director with a vision, an unrivaled knowledge of the transfer-market and a spectacular network of scouts as his disposal. Hmm..
Draw
Saturday
Odd Grenland (6th) – Brann (8th)
Like Viking, Brann may or may not have turned a corner, and this game will be a good indication of which one it is. Under the guidance of the unbearably smug but annoyingly competent Dag-Eilev Fagermo Odd have become a very very capable team indeed, one which should have no problem at all staying up this season.
It turns out that Brann’s Eirik Bakke is a naughty boy, as the former Leeds midfielder owns 5% of Jim Solbakken’s football agency Dynamic Solution. Footballers having even partial ownership of agencies like that is of course a big no-no according to both FIFA and the Norwegian Federation. What could get Bakke off the hook is that a good lawyer would have no trouble arguing that the brittle battler isn’t really a footballer these days.
Draw
May 6th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Lars, does VG still do individual player ratings?
People are really beginning to believe in Start now but I know they are not a deep team and an injury or two or loss of form for a couple others could quickly drop their level. They need to ride this form to safety as quickly as possible.
May 6th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Right this way sir (no points for guessing who is in the lead): http://vglive.no/#:eliteguiden:borsen509
Absolutely agree on Start, a couple of injuries and they’ll be in deep doodoo, so they’d better make the most of it now that the going is good.