.png)
15 hours ago
8
There were moments last weekend when Viking’s latest must-win game at Fredrikstad seemed to turn on a coin toss. The chances came thick and fast; both goalkeepers were forced into acrobatic saves; on the stroke of half-time, the Fredrikstad forward Henrik Skogvold unleashed a shot that cracked the underside of the bar and seemed to defy the laws of physics by spinning away.
Viking knew anything other than a win would allow Bodø/Glimt, Norwegian champions in four of the past five seasons, to dethrone them at the top. In the 71st minute, as the massed ranks of away fans in dark blue held their breath, the odds finally went in their favour: Zlatko Tripic, the captain, arced an inch-perfect cross to the back post, where Henrik Falchener, Viking’s towering centre-back, nodded in to set off an explosion of noise and send thousands of fists into the air in unison.
If Viking win their final match on Sunday, back in their Stavanger home against Vålerenga, they are guaranteed a first league title in 34 years. Bodø/Glimt start one point behind with a vastly superior goal difference.
Over the past decade, Viking have gone on an epic odyssey worthy of their name. In 2017, after years of heavy spending and lacklustre results, they were relegated from Eliteserien and ended up close to bankruptcy, surviving after a last-minute push from investors, sponsors and the local municipality. Attendances were low, enthusiasm had ebbed and there was a feeling in Stavanger, the city at the heart of Norway’s hugely lucrative oil industry, that the club had badly lost their way on and off the field.
Relegation was an ice-cold wake-up call. There were wholesale changes in management and administration to the point that only a handful of staff remained, the majority of overseas players departed and a new ethos was put in place based on developing young, local talent and rebuilding the club’s connection to the community.
“Since 2017, when we got relegated, the transformation of the club has been massive,” says Eirik Bjørnø, Viking’s CEO since 2020. “We’ve had to adjust the whole strategy. From being that big team in the richest town in Norway, where you think that there is no bottom in the money bag and you can spend whatever you want, we just stopped and we changed the mindset. We said: ‘We need to build this, take this step by step, and we need to create enough revenue to be able to survive on our own, not being dependent on any foreign or outside investments.’”
The first step was to make a swift return to the top division, a task handed to Bjarne Berntsen, a popular figure at the club; he had served in almost every conceivable position – from head coach to CEO to sporting director – going back to the 90s. He set about turning a team packed with inexperienced academy graduates into a winning machine, though it did require a dramatic run of four victories on the bounce for them to secure the title, and promotion, by a point on the final day.
“Going down and playing in the second tier was a big disappointment, but at the same time it gathered the people and the city around the club again,” says Bjørnø, who worked in the marketing department at the time. “They travelled with us to all these small places around Norway and we won football games … when you win games, it doesn’t matter what level it is at, you get this feeling of belonging again.”
Tripic, who has now made more than 200 appearances for Viking in two spells, was a mainstay in the team that won promotion that season, having arrived in early 2018. “I was one of the few players that they brought in, a little bit older,” he says. “At the time I was 25, and that says everything that I was one of the experienced players … [It] was maybe the best decision in my career. Obviously the whole journey, where we are now, it means, I can say, extra to me, because I’ve been there from the start.”
Berntsen helped the club to stabilise again in Eliteserien, leading them to fifth in 2019 – and winning the Norwegian Cup, Tripic scoring the only goal in the final – before guiding them to sixth the following year. At the end of the 2020 season, however, the club hierarchy decided fresh impetus was needed and Berntsen was relieved of his duties. It was a controversial move given his long association with the club and high standing among supporters, many of whom were unhappy with the decision.
There was even more scepticism when the club promoted his two assistant coaches, Bjarte Lunde Aarsheim and Morten Jensen, into an unusual dual head coach role. There was method to the madness, however: Aarsheim and Jensen have transformed Viking and, barring a blip in 2022 when a mid-season collapse left them 11th, they have become regular title contenders, twice finishing third and, last season, challenging Bodø/Glimt and Brann to the end.
Bjørno says of the unorthodox coaching model: “I always say – obviously joking a little bit – that I don’t recommend it to anyone, but, at the same time, for us it’s been the perfect match.” He credits the success of Aarsheim and Jensen to their getting to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses as assistants, consciously deciding to pitch their credentials as a duo and putting their egos aside for the team. “They are very different personality-wise but they have the same idea of football and leadership … they can kind of play off each other in a good way.”
after newsletter promotion
Aarsheim, who played for Viking between 1993 and 2005, and Jensen, who had a short spell in the academy, have benefited from shrewd squad building, the club balancing player sales with smart recruitment in recent years. That has been down in no small part to Erik Nevland, Viking’s sporting director, formerly a prolific goalscorer for the club who also had spells in the Premier League with Manchester United and Fulham. “We’re mostly local guys, a lot of us have played for the club and a lot of us are from the region, so everyone has that love at the bottom of everything we do,” Nevland says of those working behind the scenes. “The coaches care about the club, I do, our CEO does. It’s quite a tight group of local guys who are running things.”
Nevland knows what it takes to earn hero status at Viking, having helped to secure one of the club’s most famous results – scoring twice in a 4-2 win to knock Claudio Ranieri’s Chelsea out of the Uefa Cup in 2002 – but the title eluded his generation, the 90s and 2000s marked by a period of crushing domination for Rosenborg. “Viking is historically a big club,” he says, pointing to the five titles won during the club’s 70s golden era. “You see that it means a lot to people that the club is up there and fighting for the title … there’s such a big buzz around the place.”
While the players are well aware of expectations going into their final match, there is a surprisingly serene vibe. “I have the same nerves now for this last game that I have had the last five, six weeks now, because we knew that we had to win all of them if we were going to have a chance for the championship,” says Tripic. “The pressure has been there all the way so it’s nothing new.”
With 10 goals and 14 assists in the league this season, plus the captain’s armband, the 32-year-old will have to shoulder perhaps the heaviest weight of responsibility as he leads out his young teammates at Viking Stadion. “When you get so much attention you feel that you have, in some ways, something to lose, because you are so close to something. But we have managed to stay professional, managed to be calm in that position and to love being in that position. We don’t think of it as a burden.”
Tripic has tried to savour the growing excitement in Stavanger. “The last couple of months, we have felt it in the city. You feel it when you go to the grocery store or, for me, when I go to kindergarten with my kid. People are cheering for us, hoping that we are doing well. You feel really proud. There are not many players who can have those moments and have that way to impact somebody’s life during a football career. That’s the beautiful part of football, how much it means to other people.”
After watching Viking fall so far only to rise again, a ship tossed on a decade-long storm, supporters have no intention of mirroring the players’ sense of composure. “The town has lost it, as they should,” says Bjørno. “The fans are crazy and they should be crazy, we want them to be. But the heart rate is quite low for most of us and we’re just enjoying this situation, looking forward to what’s coming, and now it’s a 50-50: either we win the league, or we don’t.” It could come down to another coin toss, in other words. Viking will take those odds.
