Former Celtic utility player Vidar Riseth has been giving his view on our future Europa Conference League opponents, Bodø/Glimt. Riseth was Jozef Venglos’ first signing back in 1998 and spent almost 3 years at Celtic Park. He represented his country Norway on 51 occasions and has a good knowledge of the current Norwegian champions who Celtic will meet over two legs in February.
As reported in today’s dailyrecord, Riseth gave an in-depth description of what Celtic will be facing early next year. He said: “They are playing offensive 4-3-3 football and you might be better asking Mourinho what he thinks about them.
“When they played against Mourinho’s team, they had no respect for them. They just played brilliant football and they were also good in Italy. In the 6-1 game, Mourinho said beforehand that he had watched Bodo/Glimt on the tapes and he knew they were going to meet a good team. But even then he was really surprised by everyone.
“Bodo/Glimt is the new Rosenborg of Norwegian football. They have been playing so well in the past two years and have a coach who is terrific.
Riseth is referring to head coach Kjetil Knutsen, who is a wanted man across Europe after leading his team to a second-successive Eliteserien title last weekend. With the club being over 100 years old they have had limited success over the years. Since the Northern Norwegian teams were allowed into the countries top tier in 1972, Bodø/Glimt have won a couple of Norwegian Cups and have been runner up in the Eliteserien a few times.
That’s until last year when they won the title for the first time under Knutsen, a former assistant who has been at the heart of their success. He had never coached in the top tier of Norwegian football until he took over the club in 2018.
Riseth continued “He’s been building up an amazing team and they are so good. It’s a dream to watch because they are dangerous. I like the offensive play. They have many young players, yet many are into the national team with Norway and, at the moment, they have no respect for anyone when they go out onto a pitch. They feel they can beat anyone. Bodo have done it for two years.
“They won the league last year and did it again on Sunday, even though they lost players after the first success who went to Spain, Italy, Germany and other places. The coach just signed two players from Rosenborg. This year they were the best in the league. There is plenty of quality. The left-back will go to Germany, for sure, but that position can be replaced.”
Riseth is talking about their current left-back Fredrik Andre Bjorkan, who is already lined up to join Hertha Berlin in the Bundesliga, and the former Celtic man admits more may go before the sides meet in February.
But Riseth says the situation will be handled by Knutsen, if Bodø/Glimt can hold on to their manager. As he previously mentioned, he already had to oversee a changing of the guard after their title win last season so fans of the club will have faith that he will be able to steer them through it once again.
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He said: “It is a really small town in Norway, but the coach is brilliant. He talked with Norwich before they got their new coach and I know many teams are seeing what he is doing in Norway. Most people who can see European football are watching what he is doing and what the team is doing and they must be impressed.”
Sounds to me like Knutsen may be the Norwegian version of our own manager Ange Postecoglou, who has dealt with an even bigger overhaul on the player front in an even more limited time frame. What I’m hearing recently from people like Vidar Riseth and others who have a better knowledge of the Norwegian champions than I do makes me believe we may be in for an exciting tie.
Hopefully with us having our important players returning before the tie and potentially adding a few more in the upcoming transfer window we will be fully prepared to progress against a team who may be trickier than first assumed.
Conall McGinty
