As the curtains close on part one of the Tippeliga, the 18th round proved a highly appropriate ending: Rosenborg won without impressing anyone, Molde won and impressed everyone, Lyn shot themselves in the foot and the rest was all a bit random.
Now, nothing would be more gratifying than to report that the bullies from Bergen where humped, thumped, thwacked and indeed wallopped by a magnificent Molde. But in all fairness, Brann were very very unfortunate. Going 1-0 down inside the first minute against a counter-attacking team like Molde through an individual error is rotten luck, and then having a perfectly good equalizer disallowed for no apparent reason shortly afterwards, well, it really wasn’t Brann’s day.
Their bullying tactics have won them few friends so far this season, but in this case you have to feel a bit sorry for them. Anyway, after that they were well and truly Diouf’ed, with Mame Biram Diouf impressing visiting scouts with four goals and his namesake Pape Pate Diouf adding a classy fifth. Another audacious chip from Erik Huseklepp and a second consolation-goal from Armann Björnsson put some gloss on the result, but the 5-2 win was no less than Molde deserved. The game was probably Mame Biram Diouf’s last appearance in the Tippeliga as the forward is being chased by clubs all over Europe. According to TV2 the clubs following Diouf include heavyweights like Lyon, Bordeaux, HSV and Schalke 04. It’s now just a question of where he’ll go and how much Molde will get for him.
Down in the unfashionable end of the standings, Lyn shot themselves in the foot yet again. The ultimate showdown of doom was settled by an own goal from Lyn-defender Indridi Sigurdsson, and while no one is ever relegated in July the 1-0 defeat to Bodø/Glimt makes it very very hard to see any kind of light in the end of the tunnel for Lyn. “We’ll have to use the vacation well and come up with something clever, but right now I don’t know what that will be” a despondent Kent Bergersen said after the game. The Lyn bigwigs met after the game, presumably to discuss if there’s any way they can afford to sack Bergersen, but then told the media this morning that they have full confidence in their manager, presumably because the answer was no.
The encounter between Fredrikstad and Sandefjord was on paper as predictable as they come in this league, but as seasoned Tippeliga-followers will know, that’s not saying a whole lot. A ruthlessly efficient Sandefjord scored two goals in spite of only really having one chance in the game, and a woefully inefficient Fredrikstad only managed to get the ball past the excellent Sandefjord-keeper once. This of course means a 2-1 win and three points to Sandefjord, which doubles their total points-tally in the last two months. Make sense of it if you can.
The battle of the upstarts also yielded a bit of a shock, as Start rose to the occasion and became the first team to beat Odd Grenland on their home patch since the beginning of time 30. September 2007. Again youngster Mads Stokkelien stole the headlines with his clever match-winning header, but perhaps more remarkable was the performance of Jesper Mathisen in Start’s defense. Odd have scored more goals at home than any other team in the league and the visiting Southerners have looked ropey at the back since Clarence Goodson went off to play with team USA in the Gold Cup, but young Mathisen stepped up and put in a terrific performance, alongside veteran Bård Borgersen. Hear this? Can you hear it? This is the sound of yours truly munching away at his own words. Yum yum. Well done Jesper.
At Marienlyst Rosenborg concluded their spring campaign much in the manner of which it’s been fought: By picking up a workmanlike 1-0 win. Strømsgodset did their thing and put up a decent fight, but in the end they couldn’t take their chances and needless to say you need to do that if you’re going to pick up points against the league leaders.
Viking went into their away-fixture with Stabæk feeling confident, but a brace from Swedish forward Fredrik Berglund made it a 2-0 win for the hosts and Viking will spend the vacation solidly rooted in mid-table. Stabæk on the other hand seem to be hitting a bit of form, which is handy considering the crucial Champions League qualifiers are looming in the not too distant future.
At Åråsen hosts Lillestrøm held Aalesund to a 1-1 draw in a game that was remarkably unremarkable, and Kjetil Rekdal again managed to successfully to get through a round of interviews without causing hysterical outbreaks of hypocritical moralizing in the national sporting press. Two weeks in a row now Kjetil, well done.
And finally, the 18th round of the Tippeliga was concluded up North on Monday night as Tromsø overcame Mad Martin’s Vålerenga with a 2-0 scoreline. It was the second win in a row for the Northerners, and thus Tromsø at least manage to end a rather miserable spring season on a high.
July 13th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Dammit, why did you have to dis Start’s defence before this particular match?! Why couldn’t you have said something mean about Svindal Larsen instead? Or maybe that Odd would have a keeper problem without Arason (although Thomassen did indeed give a fair overall performance)? At the very least you can start dissing Fagermo again, that’ll always do the trick.
Of course, I personally had a bit of a bad feeling myself. Just as it was almost inevitable that Odd would finally get an away victory last round, so would it sooner or later happen that they’d lose at home. but they’re taking their vacation on 3rd place, so the overall morale in the team is probably still pretty OK.
Speaking of slightly superstitious feelings, one must wonder if it’s the fate of Tommy Knarvik to score the same kind of classy goal against Enga again and again. OK, it’s only happened twice, but if there’s anything one loves to do in sports, it’s illogical extrapolating.
You know, after last round, somebody must have told MB Diouf that Semb characterised him as “ineffective”. One could imagine him saying in Hollywood style “We’ll see about that, Semb”, and then practising all week to create the 9-minute hat-trick, -just- to prove Semb wrong.
First I almost get some sympathy for Vålerenga last week, and now you’re feeling a bit sorry for Brann? I hope this trend isn’t continuing, or we may even start rooting for LSK, or think that Erik Hagen is an all-over nice guy… *shudder*
Berglund must have the week of his life, but wouldn’t it help Stabæk more if he scored one goal in say every third match, instead of six goals in two matches and two goals in the remaining 17? Take a lesson from Prica, whose rather more consistent scoring habit is what keeps RBK in the top.
Lyn may be well and truly doomed and gloomed, but at least the fact that they’re in all kinds of gloom and doom gets them the press time that 28 of their matches this season won’t. (The local derbies against Enga being the two matches anyone outside their club even pays attention to, much less actively roots for Lyn to win.) And there’s always someone rich who’s also stupid enough to believe that all publicity’s good publicity, and who will therefore be willing to sponsor Lyn. But that will take away most of their gloom and doom and therefore their time in the press, which means the sponsor will be unhappy. Thus we have a neat catch-22 that will spiral them down into 2nd division pretty soon, should they even survive.
Finally, loved the “beginning of time” comment. In fact, plenty of neat one-liners this time, ending your spring season on a high note.
July 14th, 2009 at 12:28 am
It seems most of the teams played like they had one eye on the field and one on their vacation plans. I know that was true with more than one Adecco team.
BTW Lars, sorry that Alta didn’t take more out of Molde mid-week. From the Sunday results you can see why Adecco teams can match up for “special” games with the Tippe but week in and week out don’t have the depth to compete. (Of course, the differing quality of the overall teams’ rosters goes without saying.)
I think most teams have hit their right strides and the second half should be really fun. Rosenberg and Molde should take one and two (unless Molde gets greedy and makes a boat load of money selling players). I guess several teams will fight for third. But, man o man, the race is tight at the bottom. I’ll wave bye bye to Lyn. But their are five or six teams who could go down if they hit a bad patch in the road. This battle should be interesting.
See you in a couple of weeks!
July 14th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Good stuff from Start at Odd and NO ONE saw that coming so don’t feel too bad Lars. No one expects Jespar Mathisen to really replace Goodson but he did a good impression in this match. Getting Bolanos back get the Sountherns hope going into this one as well. Freeman’s 40 meter cross that some how found the goal really changed the match.
July 14th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
The transfer-market will decide the title-race this time. For Molde, Mame Biram Diouf is definitely going but they have Jose Mota there and he’s a decent replacement. If they can keep hold of guys like Thioune and Forren they shouldn’t suffer that much. It’ll be a very interesting summer for Rosenborg, Tettey, Skjelbreid, Sapara, Annan, Lustig and even Demidov will all probably be attracting serious interest from abroad, and it’ll be very interesting to see who Rosenborg decide to cling on to and who they sell..
It’s of course premature to say that no one else can win the league but those two, if both of them end up selling a lot of players then you’ll have to count Odd as a serious contender. This is a problem for all of mankind, as such an event would inflate Fagermo’s ego to the extent that it’s gravitational pull would exceed that of a black hole, possibly resulting in the world going under. Be afraid, be very afraid.
You’d have to fancy Bodø/Glimt for the drop and Strømsgodset for the play-off, but there’s a lot of spirit in both those camps and in a frantic relegation-battle that can count for a whole lot, so as Al says it will get very exciting indeed.
July 14th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
So you’re saying Fagermo will get an even bigger ego than Tom Nordlie? :O
July 15th, 2009 at 3:10 am
Yes. I’m saying Fagermo’s ego will be bigger than Tom Nordlie.
July 15th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
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July 16th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
Fredrik Berglund is a man possessed!