So much of Bodo/Glimt is already unique that perhaps they’ll forgive Mikel Arteta for copying the plan that transformed their club.
It is instead the white half of north London helping the Norwegians break new ground in their home debut in the Champions League.
Bodo earned a 2-2 draw away at Slavia Prague on their Champions League debutAFP They reunite with Tottenham Hotspur months on from their Europa League semi-final clashGettyKjetil Knutsen’s men, who hail from a tiny town north of the Arctic Circle, have become one of Europe’s greatest recent success stories.
Bodo/Glimt were only promoted to the Eliteserien, Norway‘s top-flight, ahead of the 2018 season with a €4.2million (£3.6m) budget.
Since then, the club have won the league championship four times in the last five seasons, and reached the Europa League‘s semi-finals in May, having also reached the quarters of the inaugural Conference League in the 2021/22 term, where they fell to competition winners, Roma.
Ørjan Berg has borne witness to it all, having played for Bodo across two spells as a player, and now as their sporting director.
His son Patrick, who is Norway’s first-ever third-generation international footballer, is part of the club’s current side, making Champions League history against Tottenham Hotspur.
Berg explained during an exclusive interview with talkSPORT.com: “Bodo/Glimt, in the middle of the 70s, it was the first kind of good period for the club. And then again in the 90s, and again sometimes in the early 2000s.
“But it was always like one or two good seasons and then you were relegated, you came back up again, you had some good times, and then it was kind of, it went up and down all the way.
“I think what’s special now is a couple of things. We have half of the team are homegrown players, kind of from the same generation.
“They just happen to be among the best players in Norway and have been for five, six, seven years.
“So I think that four of them kind of broke through at the same time, at the ages of 19,20, 21.
Norwegian underdogs Bodo/Glimt are flourishing in Europe againGetty The club’s name is just one of many things that make it so uniqueGetty“Patrick is one of them. That happened, we got a coach and a new staff and a new coaching team with Kjetil Knutsen.”
How a fighter pilot’s mental techniques changed Bodo/Glimt
In Bodo’s transformation, Berg also earmarks the arrival of Bjørn Mannsverk, a former Royal Norwegian Air Force F-16 fighter pilot.
The latter was in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks as part of his military duties, in addition to a NATO-led intervention in Libya.
Mannsverk joined Bodo as a mental coach in 2018, following the club’s relegation to Norway’s second tier.
His techniques helped establish a philosophy and culture that became the fabric of the team, which Arteta is now hoping to emulate with RAF fighter pilots to give Arsenal an ‘edge’.
Berg added to talkSPORT: “That really changed the way we were thinking, because we, like everyone else, were thinking about getting enough points to achieve this or that.
Mannsverk’s ‘Bodø/Glimt Ring’ sees the players gather in a circle after conceding a goal to maintain solidarityAFP“For us, it was always important to get 30 points in a season because then you didn’t get relegated. But we had a mental coach, Bjørn Mannsverk, in 2018.
“He worked with the players and with the coaches, and they just flipped it. They changed it totally.
“So from 2019, we haven’t been talking about winning or losing points, victory, defeats at all.
“Just think about performance and development, and having a good team with players really working hard together and like a team.
“When you think like that, you take away some pressure.
“So I think that kind of mentality, together with having those players, was the start of [Bodo’s recent success].
Bodo stars have no specific targets, apart from being the best version of themselves“Now that you have some money in Norway, we can buy good players, but the culture is the same. And it’s really strong.”
Berg attributes that newfound mentality to helping Bodo become a force to be reckoned with against traditional European heavyweights.
“I think I haven’t heard any other clubs in football that’s doing that,” he admitted.
“I have heard other athletes in other sports that’s doing that. There are some examples in Norway, in skiing and stuff like that.
“The best in the world, they often focus on what they have to do more than on their result.
But as a football club, maybe we are a bit special.
The Ruben Amorim era at Manchester United began with a win over Bodo at Old Trafford“It must be the way of thinking. Don’t focus on the result. Try to develop, focus on performance.
“Then you have a bunch of players that really enjoy being together, they like playing football together. They like to travel together.
“I think that’s also an X factor because it has to be like that if you are going to have a really strong team.
“Because the best players in the world are not going to play in Bodo, that’s for sure.
“But if you have that kind of a group of players that we have now and have had for the last years, you can compete against a lot of teams in the world.”
Arsenal had to contend with the icy conditions on a visit in 2022GettyMourinho’s heaviest career defeat
In 2021, the Norwegian minnows handed Jose Mourinho the heaviest defeat of his management career during a 6-1 win over Roma.
However, Berg claims the result wasn’t a surprise thanks to attitudes towards their plastic pitch at their 8,270-capacity Aspmyra Stadion.
It has become an icy graveyard for visitors, which also includes Ange Postecoglou on a miserable trip to Bodo with Celtic a year later.
Berg revealed: “We played against AC Milan in 2020 [3-2 defeat], away game in the Covid period, so there were no spectators, but it was a really close game.
“They beat us and probably well deserved, but that was kind of the first sign that we got something to do in Europe, we can compete against big teams.
Mourinho was absolutely fuming at his players in what was a dark night for RomaGetty“So for me, beating Roma the way we did, really not a surprise because they came and they didn’t want to be here, with Mourinho talking about the plastic pitch and everything like that, and we just wanted to play good football.
“You just have to try to stay focused and not worry about the things that you can’t do something about.
“It’s not being disrespectful to Mourinho because he has achieved so many great things and has done so many good things for football. But when we come to play in stadiums in Europe, you experience things.
“The buses are delayed, there’s no water after training, stuff like that always happens.
“But if you spend energy focusing on it, it could affect the end game, so we try not to do that.
“That was a special evening for us.”
Postecoglou hailed Bodo’s ‘mental resilience’ when asked about their strengths in April, and made sure his Tottenham players trained on the plastic pitchGettyBodo/Glimt vs Tottenham
What also promises to be another special evening for the club is their reunion with Spurs in their Champions League opener this week.
The Lilywhites secured a 4-1 aggregate victory over Bodo in the Europa League semi-finals, en route to lifting the trophy in May.
“I really enjoy that we are going to play against Tottenham tomorrow because we have played them and they beat us well deserved,” Berg continued.
“I think the players and the coaches, they kind of, after the two games against Tottenham, they were like, ‘OK, we’ve got to make some small changes in the way we train. We have to do this and that.’ And they have done it.
“So it’s going to be really interesting to see if that’s going to affect the game against Tottenham.
“They have got some new quality players. But they are going to be well prepared.
Tottenham ultimately won the Europa League after a semi-final victory against BodoGetty Bodo/Glimt play at the 8,270-capacity Aspmyra StadionGetty“And I think it’s going to be a game a little bit like the last time we played here in Bodo.
“I always have a good feeling, so I’m useless to ask about things like that. But I’m expecting a tight game. Not too many chances.”
Bodo/Glimt play on a plastic pitch
Tottenham were no strangers to synthetic surfaces, but needed extra-time to beat non-League Tamworth in the FA Cup in January.
Yet the Premier League giants mustered a far more accomplished performance on a 4G pitch with a 2-0 victory at Bodo months later.
“I think Tottenham is really well prepared,” Berg concluded. “They played well the last time.
“Yes, we have a plastic pitch, artificial grass, but you can really play good football because the ball is moving super fast.
“Good players, they can play excellent football in our stadium. So, hopefully it’s going to be a good game tomorrow.”
Why do Bodo play on a plastic pitch?
The Aspymyra Stadion is located above the Arctic Circle, which led to the 3.1 million kroner (£225k) installation of an artificial pitch in 2006.
Club chiefs determined that maintaining a grass field to elite standards in the brutal weather conditions would prove too difficult.
The Aspmyra Stadion holds 8,270 seats, counts 4,500 season ticket holders, and a new 10,000-seat arena is projected for 2027.
Hence then, the article about tottenham s champions league rivals used a fighter pilot s mental techniques to hand jose mourinho his heaviest defeat was published today ( ) and is available on talksport ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Tottenham’s Champions League rivals used a fighter pilot’s mental techniques to hand Jose Mourinho his heaviest defeat )
Also on site :