Editor’s note: On Tuesday, the Norwegian club Bodo/Glimt achieved an astonishing milestone in Champions League history by knocking out last season’s finalists, Inter Milan. The foundation for this remarkable feat was laid during their Europa League campaign last season. This piece was originally published in May 2025, prior to Bodo/Glimt’s semifinal matchup against Tottenham Hotspur.
Bodo/Glimt, regarded as the extraordinary underdogs of European football, engage in meditation before their training sessions, come together for discussions after conceding goals, and collectively decide on their match captains. A key tenet of their philosophy is to avoid discussions about winning or league standings; they shun any clichés about needing to secure three points.
These methods play a significant role in explaining how a small team from Norway, nestled well within the Arctic Circle, has reached the Tottenham Hotspur match on Thursday in the UEFA Europa League semifinals, just a few steps away from potentially securing a European trophy and a spot in the next season’s UEFA Champions League.
The residents of Bodo are fully aware that this is a classic David vs. Goliath narrative. They realize that their entire town’s population (42,831) could fit into Spurs’ stadium with room to spare, and that their annual transfer budget mirrors what a Spurs player could make in a single season. They understand they’re still not fully recognized within the realm of European football, and that their competitors this season will need to search far and wide for their destination: tracing a route northward for 16 hours from Oslo to a place where daylight lasts just 56 minutes in December but nearly 24 hours in July.
Despite the odds, the players of Bodo/Glimt are unphased by their journey so far. Perhaps what we’re witnessing isn’t an underdog story after all. Bodo/Glimt secured their first Norwegian league title in 2020 and has claimed it in four out of the last five seasons. During that time, they’ve advanced to the knockout stages of European football and triumphed over some heavyweight clubs, including AS Roma, Celtic, and Besiktas.
This season, they defeated FC Porto in the group stage and narrowly lost to Manchester United. Most recently, they achieved a remarkable victory over Lazio in the quarterfinals, with the first leg played in deep Arctic snow. The prospect of adding Tottenham to their list of vanquished opponents now seems attainable, albeit still a bit ambitious.
Several factors have contributed to the club’s advancement to the final four. Chiefly, it’s their talented generation of players emerging from their youth setup, including Jens Hauge and Patrick Berg, who made their first-team debuts just before the team’s inaugural title win in 2020. Additionally, there are the harsh conditions that confront any visiting European teams, combined with a group of players who are largely native to northern Norway, many hailing from Bodo itself. This success is also attributable to an attractive style of play fostered by a coaching team led by manager Kjetil Knutsen, whose name has been associated with potential roles in the Premier League.
However, the story of Bodo/Glimt’s rise typically begins in 2017, when they were relegated to the Norwegian second division, coinciding with the arrival of a Norwegian fighter pilot named Bjørn Mannsverk.
Eight years ago, Mannsverk joined the club after wrapping up his active military service that included operations in Afghanistan and Libya. A colleague from his military squadron had contacted Bodo/Glimt to see if his expertise could be of assistance. The club, eager to recover from relegation and believing their players possessed the requisite skill, felt that mental fortitude was the issue leading to their collapse at the close of the previous season. They asked Mannsverk, who had little interest in football, to work with the players, and he agreed.
“Bjørn has brainwashed us now for six years,” said Ørjan Berg, a former player who now works in the club’s youth department, whose son Patrick serves as the team’s official captain.
Mannsverk stipulated two conditions for his involvement: players could only approach him voluntarily—he would not see anyone who was mandated to do so—and he would not act as their agent. “I won’t push decisions on players in favor of the club [such as signing new contracts or adopting training styles],” Mannsverk explained. “I’m here for the player.”
Mannsverk started his role without any pay and described it as more of a “hobby” at the beginning. He posed a question to the club’s management: “What if a player tells me they no longer want to play football? What if they wish to leave the club? I will support them in that decision. Are you prepared to accept that risk?”
It posed a substantial risk for the club to involve someone they weren’t financially compensating. Nevertheless, they decided to take the plunge, believing it could yield benefits. It didn’t take long for this gamble to yield results.
One of the first players who sought Mannsverk’s guidance was midfielder Ulrik Saltnes, whom Mannsverk described as “a brilliant player in training but struggled during matches.” Saltnes was dealing with stomach issues that triggered diarrhea, restricting him to just half a match at a time and even sidelining him from training for an entire week. After medical staff failed to uncover any physical cause, Saltnes suspected a mental block and thought Mannsverk might help him.
“He expressed his frustration with his inability to perform in games and his exhaustion from the pain,” Mannsverk recounted. Saltnes had even contemplated quitting football and pursuing his university studies.
“I told him, ‘That’s fine,'” Mannsverk said. “We began discussing: ‘Why do you love football? This is your dream, yet you’re leaving it behind?'”
Saltnes expressed the mental burdens he imposed on himself.
“Setting your ambitions too high or rushing to resolve problems can become overwhelming,” Mannsverk pointed out. “If the only answer to failure is to apply more pressure, that’s not sustainable. This is something Ulrik grappled with for years. While his skills improved, the stress level was unsustainable, manifesting as physical symptoms that warned him he was unable to play.”
“I suggested he enjoy his last months, go with the flow, and have fun,” Mannsverk recalled.
Saltnes found this intriguing but worried it sounded too much like a lack of ambition. If high pressure impacted his performance, how could he let go? “Can you perform worse than you currently do?” Mannsverk questioned. “No. And will they let you go? Nope. So there’s no risk.”
Saltnes had no counter-argument and decided to embrace the idea. “He taught me to stop stressing, take away the pressure, and it transformed my performance,” he told ESPN. “About six weeks later, the stomach pain was virtually gone. It’s astonishing but reinforces how much mental stress can affect you.”
To say his journey continued on an upward trajectory would be an understatement. Take, for example, the Europa League quarterfinal first leg against Lazio earlier this month, which Bodo/Glimt won 2-0, with Saltnes netting both goals.
Mannsverk, with backing from coaches and management, also proposed that players meditate in their kits every morning before practice.
“I often encounter skepticism in organizations about this process, but I assert that our approach focuses on tangible performance,” Mannsverk said. “It’s not wishy-washy; it’s very much performance-oriented. We conduct it in our training gear, in familiar surroundings.