Climbing the Mountain: Bob Bradley at Stabæk

I heard all the Norwegian newspaper had predicted Stabaek will end up on the last place of Tippeligaen. If you look at the market value of the team's players, Stabaek chances for a successful season seem slim http://www.transfermarkt.com/en/tippeligaen/startseite/wettbewerb_NO1.html
Stabaek has the youngest squad and the second lowest market value, which went up a lot in the last month or so, because Stabaek has received it's 3 most valuable players: Fontanello, Adu and Sokolowski (last two players are on a half year lease). While 6 points in the first 2 games are impressive, Stabaek has won against Sogndal (lowest market value) and with a lot of luck against Brann (6 best mv).
Like ringo said, it's hard to say how Stabaek will do, the next few weeks will show more. BTW ringo, how is Stabaek financial situation right now?
I doubt Stabaek can end up in a top 3 spot. Mid table should be a great success for Bob, but I do not think that such a result will be enough to jump start his career in Europe. He seems to be a great coach, but being from the USA is a burden for a football coach. Guess the same with basketball, not sure if it's true, but I doubt that any NBA team has ever hired a successful European basketball coach.

 

Uh-oh.

I don't know either, but that's an interesting question. And if a foreign NBA coach is successful, it would likely be someone who has spent many years within the league acclimating to it.

 

They haven't yet. The most widely named candidate is David Blatt, who is American but most of his coaching experience is in Europe and Israel.

 

It is still strained.

However, we've just filed a claim of 2,2 MUSD for wrongful prosecution in the Gunnarsson/Stengel transfer saga.

 

Ettore Messina

 

Hi,

I am beginning to understand some of your comments about nepotism and favouritism with regards to team selection. Craig Henderson is in the starting line-up despite missing much of the preseason and poor performances in the season opening. While Timmi Johansen, the only left back in the squad, and one of our best players last season does not seem to get a chance...

 

To be clear about one thing, the term "nepotism" (at least in the literal sense of favoring relatives) should never, ever be applied to Bob at this point. He's been totally vindicated with respect to Michael.

 

OTOH,the Jonathan Bornstein saga proves he does play favorites.What coach doesn't?

 

Down 0-1 in the 60'

 

0-2 now.

Just a hunch, but we might see a little bipolar fandom here shortly.

 

Not, from me

As you might have gathered I was not all that enthused by Bob in the first place, and with a less than impressive preseason, this opening with 6 points after 3 games is over the moon compared to what I expected.

We had our oportunities against Molde as well, but they were causious and effective, and deserved this win. As Bob said after the game, this was important lessons learned for us.

 

How big is the domestic league in Norway? Is it hugely attended/followed or do you feel supporters have more attention on the PL or Bundesliga?

 

Back when Soccernomics was written, the EPL was the king in Norway - it was one of the examples of the countries that loves soccer the most, but not their own domestic league.

I don't know what it's like now...

 

I think Norway's draw to the EPL goes all the way back to Tore Andre Flo's success at a time when Norway's national team, which coincided with their qualification for the 98 World Cup and 2000 Euros. (probably the Golden age of Norway's international soccer). At that time, half of Norway's national team played in England. That said, there could be a shift now as more of Norway's players are involved in Germany now.

 

It goes back way longer than that.

We have a state lottery callen Norsk Tipping. They have a product called "tippekupongen" where you basically "bet" on the match outcome of 12 games, and win cash prices if you have 12, 11 or 10 correct results. This has gone on since the "dawn of humanity", and even back in the day they used to run with english matches. Thus the interest for english fotball was spawned.

In 1969, the sports editor of the Swedish state owned TV company, got the idea to televise live english football to Scandinavia when the domestic leaugs was off season. So togheter with the state owned channels in Denmark and Norway, they bought the rights to send english football in Scandinavia.

The first game shown was between Wolverhampton and Sunderland on the 29. of november 1969. That was the trigger for this mass hysteria. The state channels owned the rights until 1995, and in that period, on every saturday at 1600 hours the "tippekampen" was an institution all over scandinavia.

There was also a result service for the other games on "tippekupongen", so that whenever a goal was scored in any of the other games, you would have a PLING noice from the TV, and the result would scoll in so that everybody could keep tabs on their "tippekupong" - And "everybody" did this!

On a sidebar - this led to a pastime binchdrinking called "PLINGISPARTY", where one whould down a can of beer everytime the telly went PLING. We love our binch drinking in Scandinavia.

But I would still say that the domestic leauge is highly supported, though spectater numbers have gone down a bit in recent years. It is not like the leauge is played in front of empty bleachers while everybody is home watching British football on the TV.

But sure, there are groups of football interested people who never see domestic football because of this facisnation with British football. Personally I find it a bit silly whenever some Norwegian use the word WE when talking about Liverpool, ManU, Chelsea, Wolverhampton or Dagenham/Redbridge.

In the latter years CM has helped keeping the interest alive, and owning the rights to English football is good business. So the commercial channels owning the rights now spend heavily in it.

It also just takes around 2 hours to fly to England, and several thousand Norwegians travel there each year to watch games live.

But for me - and many others, the domestic leauge is the dominant interest.

 

You win the Internet, today, Dave!

 

All partying aside, next game comming up on monday ( it is easter time in Norway and the country goes into shutdown mode from noon on wedenstay until thuesday the following week) this time against Odd from Skien. Odd is one of the oldest clubs in Norway and the inspiration behind the creation of Rosenborg, who also adopted the same kit colours.

Odd is often underestimated. They may not have the big names, but they have got a really good team, with an established style of playing and is led by a experienced and savvy coach.

In my opinion they have the best keeper in the leauge and in front they have last seasons top scorer Frode Johnsen. He has just turens 40, but is still going strong. They have also got a good crop of homegrown talent.

A difficult challenge for Bradley's boys on an away pitch where we often struggle.

 

2-1 loss to Odd.

 

Yeah, that was sort of expected. We opened good though, but we're looking more like the team we saw in preseason. Spending to much time in the buildup, allowing the oponents time to get people behind the ball and organize their defence. I do not think we created a good scoring oportunity the first 70 minutes.

Bob also seems to insist on starting Henderson, who underperformed once again. He is really out of his leauge. But that fits Bob's MO right? The substitutions was kind of strange as well.

 

I don't think anyone but Bradley understands some of his picks for the starting XI or some of the subs. Henderson is the most obvious one. Playing Jalasto as a fullback isn't working either. Neither is playing Granli on left fullback rather than his natural position on the right. Not very impressed with Stephens in the attacking midfield role either. He does a decent job defensively with the other two on the central midfield though.

 

Actually, we have a recently returned poster who thoroughly understands Bradley's choices, but I dare not name him, lest he appear here and confirm our worst fears.

 

don't say his name 3 times, whatever you do

 

Especially standing in front of a mirror!

 

We didn't call him Robo-Bob for nothing.