Bodø / Glimt is amazing Europe for more than four years. First, quarter finals of Europe Conference League, after notoriously beating AS Rome, future winner, 6-1 in the group stage. This happened in 2022. Three years later, they reached the semifinals of Europe League, and only one stage later, we are waiting to see if they can replicate the performance at a totally other level: Champions League! With two draws and three defeats, Bodø / Glimt had 99.7% chances to be eliminated from UEFA Champions League.
Especially considering their next opponents in the new group stage: Borussia Dortmund, Atletico Madrid and Manchester City. A first 2-2 with the Germans. Cute, but didn’t look like enough for a big pull. Then it happened. Five wins in a row, and the squad from the tiny Norwegian town is about to cross its swords with an opponent in the quarter finals, and that opponent is… Arsenal!
Winning the competition is a thought at Bodø / Glimt!
Now everything looks possible, especially that voices from Norway stated, openly, that it wouldn’t be such a big of a surprise if actually Bodø / Glimt will win the competition! Wait, what? Surely it seems strange, but not for quite all people, especially people like me, which absorbed more and more the Norwegian life culture, in general. A well built sports team from Norway, in fair competition conditions, like impartial refereeing, for example, can really pull this thru. In the end, it is just a sport, and it is not written anywhere that only Real Madrid, Barcelona, PSG, Arsenal, or teams of the sort should win these trophies.
AS Rome remembers better what Bodø / Glimt can do
Indeed, I was mentioning 2022, when, after Bodø / Glimt beat 6-1 AS Rome in the group stage, and once more 2-1 in the quarterfinals, Mourinho’s team at that stage, recovered thru a 4-0 win at home, and eventually went thru and win the trophy. It didn’t always work, but the Norwegians, from 2021 onward accumulated more and more stamina in terms of mentally dealing with more experienced opponents. At first, besides Rome, there were Celtic Glasgow and AZ Alkmaar. Not huge names, but the kind of teams which, be being eliminated, help you build character.
Semifinals in the Europe League 2025
Generally strong on home soil, Bodø / Glimt missed a first big chance to qualify in Champions League, in 2022, when pushed to Europe League by Dinamo Zagreb. Not a particularly good season then, and the next one was only in Conference. Again. Not impressive, but still a good spell, with Ajax Amsterdam being the team eliminating them after the group stage. Again Champions, again pulled out by Red Star Belgrade, but Kjteil Knutsen’s team didn’t got discouraged, and was stopped only by Tottenham in the semifinals of Europe League. “We didn’t felt them better than us, we just didn’t manage to score”, one player stated. Kind of mentality that helped them go past FC Porto, Twente Enschede, Olympiacos and Lazio Rome. Teams with much more European experience.
What a big surprise this can become…
Finally, in 2025, the team made it in the Champions League group stage, after trashing Sturm Graz, Austria’s champions. Here, as explained above, the start was not great, and actually nobody was believing that Bodø / Glimt can make it in the first 24. Yep, chances were exactly 0.3% with three matches to go. But then, we had the match against Sporting Lisbon when not only Bodø / Glimt won clearly by 3-0, but they dominated heavily the opponent in their way to the quarterfinals. Now, winning actually the trophy would have been, indeed, maybe the biggest achievement in the football history, on top of Greece becoming European Champion in 2004, or Leicester City winning the Premier League in 2016, to mention only the biggest surprises I can remember. It would, because it can still happen at some point.
The background
Keeping the same 0.3% chances would be both enough and reasonable from a gambler’s perspective, but from my perspective, knowing Norwegians so well, the chances are much higher for the future. But why? You know, seeing the Winter Olympic Games, and also being witness, on spot, at the Oslo Marathon facilitated my understanding in what sports are for Norwegians. It is not something they deal with as a job, or as a obligation, as a hobby, or as a thing that fills their time, free or not. No, sports, in Norway, is dealt with, in general, at a great scale, as integrated part of life. And it is not for some, it is just an integrated principle, from top to last layer of society. This way, you can’t fail.
Bodø / Glimt a club that can do much more
Of course, meanwhile Sporting Lisbon overturn the odds, by securing a very clear 5-0 home win to turn the table, and diminish the Norwegian enthusiasm. Bodø / Glimt seemed purely human, that they were overconfident the opponent doesn’t stand a chance. In the end, the almost unlikely “remontada”, with smaller chances to happen than the Norwegians had to make it thru the group stage. However the story can’t be erased or diminished, and, for sure, it won’t be a surprise if, in the next years, Bodø / Glimt will reach a higher stage of the European competitions and, eventually, win a trophy.
Photo source: Bodø / Glimt Instagram