Check out our lineup of talented teams. Champions League round of 16 This week will feature a number of European football’s richest players, including Real Madrid, Liverpool, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City.
and, Bodo/Glimt.
This homely and modest club, located in a fishing town of about 55,000 people in northern Norway, should not have been mixed up with the mighty clubs of Europe.
Well, they are, but not only that, they beat them all.
Check out this four-game winning streak that saw Bodø/Glimt reach the finals of Europe’s top club competition: 3-1 at home man city2-1 away. atlético madridand won home and away. Inter Milan — last season’s runners-up — in the playoffs held during Norwegian soccer’s offseason.
They will next face Portuguese champions Sporting Lisbon in the first round of the last 16 on Wednesday.
Here’s what you need to know about this small club telling a feel-good story in this and other Champions League campaigns.
Bodo is far north
Bodo is located Above the Arctic Circlemore than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) north of Norway’s capital Oslo. Located along the western coastline of the Norwegian Sea, it is further north than any of football’s top club rivalries to date.
The town, which has its own airport, has less than an hour of daylight on its shortest days, so players take supplements to combat the lack of sun.
It can be bitterly cold and windy long winter However, local residents are experiencing the latest. The expected temperature for kickoff against Sporting is 3 degrees Celsius (37 degrees Fahrenheit).
Outside of football, Bodø has achieved some notoriety, having been named European Capital of Culture in 2024.
small stadium and its plastic pitch
Aspumila Stadium in Bodø/Glimt can accommodate around 8,000 spectators, but it was not built to host big matches between Europe’s top clubs.
A new stadium, the 10,000-seat Arctic Arena, is being built on the outskirts of town, but it is not very large.
Adding to Aspmyra’s quirky feel are the artificial fieldSome people in the soccer world criticize the way the ball rolls and bounces compared to grass.
UEFA allows approved artificial pitches to be used until the semi-finals of the competition.
Fighter pilot brings belated success to Bodo/Glimt
Founded in 1916, Bodø/Glimd had to wait more than a century to be crowned Norwegian champion for the first time. The change in fortunes had a lot to do with the hiring of a former fighter pilot.
The team had just been relegated to Norway’s second division. In Norway they are called the “elevator club” because they move back and forth between the top two divisions, but their status is lower. Bjorn Manswerk At the beginning of 2017, I was asked to join the backstage staff as a mental coach.
Manswerk had developed techniques for his squadron before the bombing mission in Libya and brought to Bodø/Glimt a philosophy and culture in which players talked openly about their emotions, changed attitudes and habits about things like preparation and nutrition, and removed the stigma against mental training.
The players and coach Ketil Knudsen fully embraced Mansberg’s methods, such as rotating captains to share leadership roles and staying united after a goal by sitting in a circle to discuss what happened, which helped the team improve.
Bodø/Glimt won First Norwegian league victory in 2020 We won three out of the next five and finished runner-up last year. Last season, the team’s success reached the semi-finals of the Europa League, where they lost in two games to Tottenham, after which they qualified for the Champions League for the first time and moved on to continental competition.
This isn’t a team full of superstars.
Bodø/Glimt receive no funding from Middle Eastern sheikhs or American private investment, so their cheaply assembled squad is made up of little-known players from Norway and Denmark.
In Norway’s latest squad selection, only two players from Bodø/Glimt were called up.
Their star striker is Kasper Hogue, a 25-year-old Danish player who has never played for his country. The other main attacker is Jens Petter Hauge, who returned to Bodø/Glimt in 2024. He left for AC Milan, but was unable to establish himself and it was four years later.
Under coach Knudsen, who joined the team in 2018 and masterminded the team’s rise, Bodo/Glimt are no longer the brave underdogs to sit back and protect. They are a free-flowing, high-intensity, attacking side, and for example, they outperformed Man City when Josep Guardiola’s side visited the Aspumila Stadium.
Sales are soaring, but still small compared to major European companies
As of 2017, Bodø/Glimt had approximately 40 employees and a budget of 4.2 million euros ($5 million).
The club’s revenue last year was 80 million euros (approximately $93 million), with more than 26 million euros (approximately $30 million) earned in the Europa League, and further increased by income from the Champions League. Compare that to Real Madrid, which according to Deloitte will have revenues of over 1 billion euros in 2025.
They have a budget of 50 million euros (approximately $58 million) for 2026, but that number will increase as the team advances in the Champions League.
Who will get Bodo/Glimt next?
If Bodo/Glimt can make more history and get past Sporting, they will face either Premier League leaders Arsenal or 2023-24 German champions Bayer Leverkusen in the quarter-finals.
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