– We have a completely crazy management – VG

The Bodø Glimt locomotive continued on its way to a historic title after a strong away win over Brann.

The league leader has taken 50 out of 54 possible points and is 16 points ahead of Molde.

“We have a management that is completely crazy,” says the team’s coach, Kjetil Knutsen.

Northerners remain undefeated and show no signs of slowing down.

The highest score a team has ever achieved in a 30-game season belongs to Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s 2014 Cast. Led by Mohamed Elyounoussi, Daniel Chima Chukwu and Fredrik Gulbrandsen, the Moldans scored 71 points.

There are 12 games and 36 points to play. You don’t have to be very good at math to understand that the tabloid team has good chances to break that record. Here are the goals from the 3-1 win over Brann:

The tight match schedule helps

In addition to devastating the Elite Series, the team is fighting in Europe. On Thursday they will face AC Milan at the San Siro in the play-offs of the Europa League group stage.

Series runner-up Molde suffered another defeat when they faced Kjartansson and Vålerenga on Saturday night. After the match, coach Erlend Moe denied demoting the Eliteserien for the possibility of playing in the Champions League. Still, he made eight team changes since qualifying against Qarabag.

In Bergen, there was no talk of a downgrade of Bodø / Glimt. Kjetil Knutsen posed early on with the same eleven that crushed Odd 6-1 in the previous round. The only change from the midweek against Zalgiris was Knutsen reverting to his supposedly stronger lineup with Brede Moe and Alfons Sampsted instead of Marius Høibråten and Morten Konradsen.

– I think we should be trained to handle such a match program. It pays us wonderfully to play games constantly. This match program also helps players like Ulrik (Saltnes), Jens Petter (Hauge) and Philip (Zinckernagel) to take new steps as footballers and develop the team.

– Has the extra tight match schedule this season as a result of covid-19 helped you as a team to be where you are today?

– Yes! If you have a team with a certain number of players over thirty, they need more recovery than a team with 22 years. We have also consciously trained ourselves in this. It was clear that this season would be like this when we finally started.

Earlier this week, Knutsen spoke to VG about Glimt’s conscious strategy in young players.

In addition to using many of the same players, Knutsen waited until the 76th minute before making substitutions.

– We made at least two changes today, right? Jens Petter Hauge VG asks after the game.

He is absolutely right on that. Ola Solbakken and Marius Høibråten entered towards the end.

We are young boys, well trained and we will be able to recover in four days. We also played a game three days ago, but I think we have a lot more energy than Brann, says Ulrik Saltnes.

– We have no goal for the season

– We will go to Europe and meet AC Milan. What we achieved today does not hold up then, we must constantly strive to improve, Knutsen tells VG after the game.

He refers to the bad first half in which Brann sometimes played perfectly evenly with his northern boys.

Both Saltnes and Jens Petter Hauge are looking forward to meeting with Zlatan & co.

– That game has hung on us like a carrot for a while now, but we have still managed to stay focused on the Elite Series and the games that will be played. “I think it is respected because it is not so easy to stay focused when journalists and the media have so much focus on San Siro and Milan,” Hauge tells VG.

See more Elite Series stats on VG Live.

The elite series

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• Champions League qualifier
• Europa League qualifier
• Descent rating
• Decline

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