Giant killers Bodo/Glimt continue remarkable rise with Inter triumph

Bodo/Glimt’s improbable ascent through European football reached a new summit on Tuesday night as the Norwegian champions eliminated Inter Milan from the Champions League, completing a 5-2 aggregate victory that propels the Arctic minnows into the last 16 and rewrites the history books for club and country.

The aggregate success, built on two fearless displays against last season’s beaten finalists, represents the greatest achievement in the 109-year history of a club that was playing in Norway’s second tier only seven years ago. Manager Kjetil Knutsen, who has overseen the transformation since 2018, hailed the moment as “an amazing evening for the club, for the players, for the town and also for Norwegian football.”

Tuesday’s second-leg win in Milan was Bodo/Glimt’s fourth consecutive Champions League triumph, a streak that includes victories over Manchester City and Atlético Madrid in the closing league-phase fixtures and lifted the club from the brink of elimination into the knockout play-offs. The run continues a trajectory that has seen the club win four Eliteserien titles in the past six seasons after earning promotion in 2017 and become the first Norwegian side to reach a major European semi-final during last season’s Europa League campaign.

Knutsen’s squad, assembled on one of the competition’s smallest budgets and devoid of household names, punished Inter with two second-half counter-attacks finished by Jens Petter Hauge and Håkon Evjen. The decisive moment arrived when Hauge intercepted a loose pass from Manuel Akanji on the edge of the Inter area and converted coolly, leaving the Italian giants with no route back into the tie.

Inter, three-time European champions and current Serie A leaders, dominated possession and territory before the breakthrough but found no answer to Bodo/Glimt’s disciplined defensive block and swift transitions. “We know that the Champions League is very competitive; if a team reaches this stage of the competition that means that they are offering something,” Inter coach Cristian Chivu acknowledged. “They showed that in Dortmund, Madrid, against City and twice against us.”

The Norwegians have long been regarded as awkward opponents because of the synthetic surface and sub-zero temperatures at the 8,200-capacity Aspmyra Stadion inside the Arctic Circle. This season they have supplemented that home advantage with resilient away performances, conceding only once across three road fixtures since the turn of the year.

Bodo/Glimt will discover their next opponent when the draw is made next month, with either Manchester City or Sporting CP awaiting in the last-16 tie. Knutsen insists the focus remains on process, not outcome. “We are not talking about goals, we are talking about how to perform and how we can take steps and develop the players and the team,” he said. “I always look forward, so that’s how we’re thinking. For me, history is not so important.”

For Inter, elimination compounds a sobering period for Italian football. With Juventus and Atalanta also trailing ahead of their decisive fixtures, the nation that once prided itself on defensive prowess risks having no representative in the Champions League’s first knockout round. The setback follows Italy’s double defeat to Norway in World Cup qualifying, deepening the sense of a shifting balance between the two nations.

As Bodo/Glimt’s players saluted a travelling contingent of supporters long after the final whistle, the wider game was reminded that modern European football’s most compelling stories are sometimes written far from its traditional centres of power.

SEO keywords: