She usually plays the 4-2-3-1 system or 4-4-2 with attacking full-backs. She is not a typical possession based coach, but rather direct in style.
Hege Riise now confirmed as new England/UK coach. After the Olympics she will return to Norway, not to LSK, but to to coach the U19 NT. A bit surprising.
I don't know. I'm sure they're working hard behind the scenes to sign new players, but they are behind schedule so far, that's obvious. Those games are scheduled for February (7th and 14th). Even if there is snow to the knee caps at Intility Arena by then, UEFA can move the game indoors to Vallhall Arena across the parking lot. Vålerenga are preparing for the Brøndby games there now and will play their first warm-up match on Thursday, a short 4x15 min game against Røa, which will be streamed live. Ingvild Isaksen is signed up as social media manager at Vålerenga and will publish more behind the scenes stuff. Here is a clip from one training session recently. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=167602321789035
Toppserien's fixture list for 2021 was released today. The first part anyway. The notorious new system with play-offs is launched. It should have been in place already last season, but was cut short by covid-19. One match will be covered live on NRK each week. Only the first nine televised games are picked so far. The last nine will be later as the season unfolds. Runde 1 (20.03 – 21.03) Klepp – Arna Bjørnar LSK Kvinner – Lyn Rosenborg – Stabæk Sandviken – Kolbotn Vålerenga – Avaldsnes, søndag 21. mars kl. 17.00 på NRK Runde 2 (27.03 – 28.03) Klepp – Stabæk LSK Kvinner – Arna Bjørnar, søndag 28. mars kl. 17.00 på NRK Rosenborg – Kolbotn Sandviken – Avaldsnes Vålerenga – Lyn Runde 3 (17.04 – 18.04) Arna Bjørnar – Rosenborg Avaldsnes – LSK Kvinner Kolbotn – Vålerenga Lyn – Klepp Stabæk – Sandviken, søndag 18. april kl. 16.00 på NRK Runde 4 (24.04 – 25.04) Klepp – LSK Kvinner Kolbotn – Stabæk Rosenborg – Avaldsnes, søndag 25. april kl. 16.00 på NRK Sandviken – Lyn Vålerenga – Arna Bjørnar Runde 5 (01.05 – 02.05) Arna Bjørnar – Sandviken, søndag 2. mai kl. 16.00 på NRK Avaldsnes – Kolbotn LSK Kvinner – Rosenborg Lyn – Stabæk Vålerenga – Klepp Runde 6 (08.05 – 09.05) Avaldsnes – Lyn Kolbotn – Arna Bjørnar Rosenborg – Klepp, søndag 9. mai kl. 16.00 på NRK Sandviken – LSK Kvinner Stabæk – Vålerenga Runde 7 (15.05 – 16.05) Arna Bjørnar – Avaldsdnes Klepp – Sandviken LSK Kvinner – Stabæk Lyn – Kolbotn Vålerenga – Rosenborg, lørdag 15. mai kl. 17.00 på NRK Runde 8 (22.05 – 24.05) Avaldsnes – Klepp Kolbotn – LSK Kvinner Lyn – Rosenborg Sandviken – Vålerenga, lørdag 22. mai kl. 17.00 på NRK Stabæk – Arna Bjørnar Runde 9 (29.05 – 30.05) Arna Bjørnar – Lyn Avaldsnes – Stabæk Kolbotn – Klepp LSK Kvinner – Vålerenga Rosenborg – Sandviken, søndag 30. mai kl. 16.00 på NRK Runde 10 (02.06) Arna Bjørnar – LSK Kvinner Klepp – Avaldsnes Lyn – Sandviken Stabæk – Rosenborg Vålerenga – Kolbotn Runde 11 (05.06 – 06.06) Avaldsnes – Vålerenga LSK Kvinner – Klepp Lyn – Arna Bjørnar Sandviken – Rosenborg Stabæk – Kolbotn Runde 12 (19.06 – 20.06) Arna Bjørnar – Stabæk Klepp – Lyn Kolbotn – Avaldsnes Rosenborg – LSK Kvinner Vålerenga – Sandviken Runde 13 (26.06 – 27.06) LSK Kvinner – Kolbotn Lyn – Avaldsnes Rosenborg – Vålerenga Sandviken – Arna Bjørnar Stabæk – Klepp Runde 14 (30.06) Arna Bjørnar – Klepp Avaldsnes – Rosenborg Kolbotn – Sandviken Stabæk – Lyn Vålerenga – LSK Kvinner Runde 15 (03.07 – 04.07) Klepp – Kolbotn LSK Kvinner – Avaldsnes Lyn – Vålerenga Rosenborg – Arna Bjørnar Sandviken – Stabæk Runde 16 (10.07 – 11.07) Arna Bjørnar – Vålerenga Avaldsnes – Sandviken Klepp – Rosenborg Kolbotn – Lyn Stabæk – LSK Kvinner Runde 17 (07.08) Avaldsnes – Arna Bjørnar Kolbotn – Rosenborg Lyn – LSK Kvinner Sandviken – Klepp Vålerenga – Stabæk Runde 18 (14.08) Arna Bjørnar – Kolbotn Klepp – Vålerenga LSK Kvinner – Sandviken Rosenborg – Lyn Stabæk – Avaldsnes So far so good, right? The top four on the table will meet home/away in a mini league to decide the championship. All points obtained in the league are nullified and replaced with the following points ladder before the play-offs: 1st place: 6 pts 2nd place: 4 pts 3rd place: 2 pts 4th place: 0 pts So the winners of the preliminary phase league have a six point gap to the fourth place team before the play-offs start. This championship league contains 6 rounds of matches. Add this to the 18 in the preliminary phase and it takes the total to 24. The highest number of league matches ever in Norway. Now for the relegation battle...it gets complicated. Now begins the real confusing stuff. We have an 8 team relegation league! Toppserien's 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th place team plus the winner and runners-up of the second tier league make up the relegation league. They don't play home/away, only one game against each team. All teams start on zero points. The top 5 teams of the relegation league remain in Toppserien. The 6th place to play-offs against the winner of the second tier league. The 7th and 8th place teams are relegated to the second tier league. And more madness. The winner of the relegation league will have a shot at a Champions League spot! That team will play off against the team finishing runners-up in the championship league. A totally unnecessary two-legged affair held in the middle of the CL group stage in November, which could potentially cause big problems on a packed fixture list. Sometimes I wish we could have more corona problems so that another season would be cut short to avoid this season calendar.
NFF is a little early with this year`s April Fool`s joke. Teams that can`t reach the Top 4 anymore have no motivation for the remaining games. At least Blissett will be happy that Medkila can qualify for the Champions League.
I sure appreciate the theoretical chance given to Medkila but... who the heck created this convoluted madness and how on earth could he believe that it was a good idea?
First warm-up match of 2021: Vålerenga 4 - 0 Røa 1-0 Dejana Stefanovic 2-0 Marie Dølvik Markussen 3-0 Celin Bizet Ildhusøy 4-0 Celin Bizet Ildhusøy Played indoor at Vallhall Arena, Vålerenga are slowly tuning up to the Brøndby games in February and have completed two weeks of pre-season training now. Tonight's action was a 60 minute game played in four quarters and Vålerenga won each quarter by 1-0 against newly relegated Røa. Two of the new signings featured in the win; Ylinn Tennebø and Camilla Huseby.
The U.K. virus mutation is detected in Oslo which has made authorities lock down several counties in the region for at least one week. Bad for Vålerenga who have to cancel all training sessions and two planned warm-up matches leading up to the Brøndby games in early February. Players have received individual exercise programmes to follow. Vålerenga will be in close contact with authorities next week and hopefully come up with a sustainable solution in the middle of this mess. Toppserien clubs from other regions in Norway are not hampered by these restrictions and can continue their pre-season as normal.
I've been in their arena a few times, not a bad venue. Same problem as most though in the lighting. I've seen some manufacturers are using translucent fabrics now to let in natural light which is a brilliant idea (no pun intended). Seems like just yesterday Ingvild Isaksen was across town playing for Stabæk. The tough part of the new league format is if you have a number of mid-season injuries or departures you can be doomed. I'm sure clubs will learn how to game the format quickly, and then there will be a ruckus and it will get tweaked again. Impressive that Vålerenga scored in each 15-minute quarter against a team that sits deep and looks to counter. Hard to tell without seeing though if the goals were top-notch or keeper wonks. The tragic and almost comedic irony here is Brøndby had one case and moved the matches two months yet Vålerenga have to cancel training for an extended period as well but have no recourse because of the dates. You could well argue the only fair outcome is to postpone the matches and the draw until they have time for proper preparation.
According to the French FF on twitter, Norway will take part in a 4-team tournament after all this winter, hosted by France in February (17th-23th). But it's still not confirmed by any Norwegian sources. The other teams participating are Iceland and Switzerland. Vålerenga were not allowed by UEFA to register their new signings for the Brøndby games after Spitse, Njoya and a few others left in December, so they now have 14 outfield players and two goalkeepers available. Not much margin for injuries or positive covid tests. The players are still in lockdown doing individual fitness training. I wonder if there are countries in Europe who are doing less for their elite athletes than Norway. Everything is shut down. Our league football would not have run by now if we had followed the traditional European autumn-spring season. We can't even take responsibility to host our weekends on the international calendar in the various winter sports out in the forests and mountains. I fear Vålerenga are going to lose by walk-over. UEFA has already mentioned that NFF is one of Europe's two or three most difficult national federations to work with regarding covid-19.
TV2 reports that the Vålerenga vs Brøndby doubleheader is cancelled due to the pandemic situation in Norway and Denmark and will be decided by a one-off game played on neutral ground - in Cyprus! Larnaca, February 10th is the date currently set.
Wow, hadn't they anything closer available, also considering that long travels use to aggravate the pandemic risk, and not to alleviate it for sure? Maybe Cyprus offered their venues after Cyprus Cup had to be cancelled?
Another benefit of the double-match was if the first match produced an unexpected result, the second match would balance out the result. It's a lot easier to upset a superior opponent over one leg than two regardless where the matches are played. If I was the sporting director of Vålerenga I would probably sit down with the team and clarify to them that UEFA is completely screwing them over and ask them if they even want to proceed. They are being asked to play short, without depth at positions, and without having trained in a long time. Against a team that had one case of covid and who UEFA royally accommodated for and pushed the games months. That's called a complete and absolute farce. Researchers are still unsure if the vaccinated can be carriers and transmit. So until everyone is vaccinated masks, distancing and other measures are mandatory. We've been told that will be September here. I imagine it will be like last year and everything will be shut down until then, including amateur and youth team sports and football. I know that professional sport here has taken an inordinate amount of resources away from the national health organization. And I'm getting tired of live sport all over the media spectrum sending the wrong message (soccer, football, basketball, hockey, baseball, etc). We're in a pandemic. Where I live no one is allowed to visit anyone, max five people meeting outdoors, all non-essential businesses are closed and there is an 8pm curfew. And they've basically said the curfew is to shock people into acting responsibly. Because when you can watch live sport basically 24/7 you get the opposite message. The professional leagues are running because they have lobbied that people need them in their lives. The truth is they're running because the owners don't want to see their investments wane. If businesses are shut down and no one can visit anyone and there is a curfew that's as serious as society gets - I'm sorry but live sport is a nice to have and not a need to have. It can wait like every other closed business. That's kind of comedic and ironic with their handling of Vålerenga. Hard to know what that difficulty refers to, but if it's pushing for enhanced safety measures they should be commended as opposed to singled out as a troublemaker.
The NFF has replied in writing to the Toppserien and Division 1 clubs with a formal apology for not including them in the media rights contract. The letter speaks of how the federation is among the leaders in Europe in terms of their funds transferred to the women's side. Stian Nygaard of Avaldsnes say's it's a false comparative as the rights in terms of league structures in other European countries are formed completely different. In many the clubs own the rights themselves or through league associations and they are not owned by the federation. He astutely follows up with we choose to look ahead, we have a strong apology and actions will show if they are serious. He hopes politicians will get involved as the funds for football are managed via the Ministry of Culture. So an apology and recognition of improper treatment, but at the end of the day if it is just words on paper or something concrete only time will tell. In other news NISO, the Norwegian Athletes Association published their Best 11: Disse fikk en plass på kvinnenes årets lag - VGTV
Yes, NISO is the players union, so this selection rests on a large number of votes from players, not just a small jury of journalists and ex-players which is often the case with awards. All Norwegian players home and abroad plus foreign players working in Norway are eligible for the team. This was the outcome: Julie Blakstad obviously impressed her opponents. She was voted both best young player and best player in Toppserien 2020 by her colleagues. There have been speculations whether she would leave this winter for a bigger club on the continent, but she has now signed on for two more years at Rosenborg.
And she seems very well grounded and level-headed, two qualities I've always admired in great players. Nice to see Camilla Linberg crack the 11 too.
Well, at least it would get them "fired up" for the game Brøndby told the story quite differently - they said it was a Norwegian rule that their team had to self-isolate, and Uefa made them travel to Oslo in December despite knowing the match couldn't happen. Is that right? https://anyonesgame.substack.com/p/brondby-made-to-travel-to-cancelled Vålerenga are back in training from Monday, 1 Feb, the club announced (before their website went down) - and they're still awaiting Uefa's decisions. About the match... If this were a more 'normal' situation without the lockdown, would Brøndby be the favourites to win against Vålerenga? With their extra experience in the competition?
Had they met in a two-legged affair in December as scheduled, I would have held Vålerenga as clear favourites with Spitse and Njoya still at the club and charged up after winning domestic titles. I think Vålerenga still look stronger on paper although Brøndby as a club have a long history in the competition. When they meet in ten days, it will be after nearly two months of inactivity for Vålerenga. With covid lockdown interfering with the preparations close to the game, no full 90 mins warm-up matches and everything to be decided in one game, I believe this is increasing the chances for Brøndby to win.
The Danes petitioned to UEFA to postpone the games because of a single positive test brought to training. UEFA then moved them months. The travel part was all UEFA. Brøndby said we're not going to go, and UEFA said either you get on that plane or you lose the game. Then when they landed UEFA said ok it's cancelled. To which everyone on all sides said okay, that was ridiculous. Self-isolating on exposure is a rule pretty much everywhere in the world isn't it? It must be in Denmark because that was their petition to move the games. UEFA has made a couple of questionable decisions; making Brøndby get on a plane, and moving the games months showed a clear lack of vision into what could happen moving them that far out.
No trip to Cyprus. Vålerenga's one-legged UWCL game vs Brøndby will be played in Denmark, Thursday 11 February. Kick-off 15:00. So literally only an away leg.
Well, with all of the mess UEFA created for months, why not just awarding Brøndby the win and call it a day? It would be cleaner than this longtime chaos.
Sounds like the Danish association knew there was no possibility of a game in Oslo and then said no to playing in Cyprus. And hey why not, a single home game is better than a neutral venue. It just keeps stinking worse. And that bit about the difficulty UEFA has with Norway is kind of odd juxtaposed against Eli Landsem saying "oh well, playing just one game... short players... without our stars... without training properly... away in their backyard... what a great opportunity you have... good luck girls!" I mean I get positive approaches and making the best of it, but if you or I or she was a player, we'd be fuming. If this was a men's game and someone was up a couple goals late it would get pretty interesting. Let's just say you wouldn't be holding onto the ball.
It's a farce now with Vålerenga fighting on three fronts: with Norwegian health authorities, UEFA and Brøndby. They have spent endless hours working behind the scenes to get a best possible solution and this is it: a do-or-die away leg in Denmark. Now they need to shift focus to things they can influence, which is on the pitch. Should Vålerenga win, they might very well have to settle for another one-off game away, because the next round is already in early March. Brøndby have signed two Norwegians recently btw. The centre-back Malin Sunde couldn't break into the Sandviken team last season, but has pretty much been a regular starter for Brøndby since joining them last summer. And before Christmas they signed relegated Røa's captain Katrine Jørgensen. But I suppose she should not be available against Vålerenga. Another name player Brøndby have is the veteran full-back Theresa Nielsen (now Eslund), who has played for Vålerenga a few years ago. She scored the winnng goal when Denmark knocked out Germany from Euro 2017 in the QF. In other news, Vilde Bøe Risa has officially announced she is leaving Häcken (former Göteborg) and is actively looking to sign for a top club in a bigger league.