As clubs across the board sack players and cut wages, we here at NFN plow on heroically..
Saturday
Sandefjord (9th) Vålerenga (5th)
After Mad Martin Andresen realized he was about to lose his job a couple of weeks back, he
shelved ambitions of playing expansive football and went into "let's just not get fired"-mode.
Norwegian teams are off on the road to Ullevål after a first round that was like a footballing
equivalent of a Harry Potter-convention: Plenty of belief, but no actual magic to be found.
The Norwegian cup is a terrifically democratic competition: No favors are given to the big names
from the Tippeliga as they start on square one along with the rest of the pack.
Before this round pundits were claiming that the high number of draws and away wins this season
meant the 2009 Tippeliga is a bit rubbish. With seven out of seven games played over the weekend
ending in a home win, does that mean it's now quite good?
Kjetil Rekdal's superbly entertaining rants at his own players this season has prompted much
moralizing and finger-wagging from people who think they know better.
13 games in and there are three teams in particular who look like they could be heading for doom
and despair (or the Adeccoliga, as some call it), but amidst the casual randomness of the Tippeliga
few things are ever certain and on matchday 14 all three of those teams picked up points..
Leading the line of the troubled threesome is Lyn, who even by their standards
face a remarkably bleak set of circumstances.
Step right this way ladies and gentlemen, at least if you need further proof that the Adeccoliga
is a weird and wildly unpredictable competition..
Yes, because in the result of the round, if not the season, everyone's favorite Northern minnows
Alta shrugged off their 7-0 televised tonking at the hands of HamKam last week and
went away to much-fancied Moss and gave them, to quote the man, "one hell of a
beating" (the utter lack of famous people hailing from Moss makes it impossible to copy the rest of
Lillelien's legendary rant) .
The second round of the Norwegian cup was so staggeringly uneventful and dull that we here at
NFN elected to ignore it altogether. However, with an epic shootout in the South, a local derby in
the Southwest and rampant minnows up North, the third round was an entirely different kettle of
fish...
We start up North with the upset that wasn't really an upset.
