Norway’s small but popular and talented Bodø/Glimt football club has won international recognition for a string of victories lately, but is being warned not to get too overly confident. The club “must not forget why they’ve been best,” warned one Norwegian football commentator just before Bodø/Glimt’s coach was suspended this week from its next three matches.
Coach Kjetil Knutsen is being punished by the European football federation (UEFA) after an altercation with Nuno Santos, Roma’s goalkeeper coach, after Bodø/Glimt beat Roma for the second time on home turf in Bodø earlier this month. Knutsen was also suspended from the club’s next match against Roma in Rome, which it lost badly.
That wasn’t the only recent incident around Bodø/Glimt, and then team captain Ulrik Saltnes planted his knee in the back of an opponent from Stavanger club Viking who was already lying on the ground last weekend. That was caught on video and many commentators agreed that Saltnes should have been thrown out of the match.
“The captain is the team’s most important player and role model,” wrote Erlend Nesje in newspaper Aftenposten on Tuesday. “If there’s one person who should avoid such situations, it’s him.”
It’s all added up to too many unfortunate incidents around the club that’s charmed not only Norway but much of the football world in the past few years. “Bodø/Glimt can’t afford to lose itself,” Nesje added. “They can’t forget the humility that made them one of Norway’s best teams.”
newsinenglish.no staff
