STAVANGER: There is seriousness in town now. Ishavsbyen’s pride has been forced down to its knees and has become a relegation blow in record time after the success of last year. Five league losses in a row from the start of the season, seasoned with a cup loss against a “big team” from Oslo who have enough of themselves in the OBOS league, need no further description. The explanation of why becomes the eternal question, and what people are concerned about is how TIL will get out of the crisis.
If you want to blame new coach Jørgen Vik, you are not alone. Nor if you want to let Bodø/Glimt have a look, since they have an easily transparent fondness for Tromsø værings. TIL’s inability to create chances is something else, which can easily be followed up with criticism of how they defend. Penalty situations and set-piece goals the wrong way are a daily occurrence.
Photo: Drawing: Odd Klaudiussen
We are anyway got to the point that it doesn’t really matter to most how TIL scores in the next few weeks, as long as they do. An old classic for a football team that doesn’t get the right results.
For head coach Vik, perhaps the answer lies in investing in a number of young players. Christophe Psyche, Sakarias Opsahl, Lasse Nilsen and Vegard Erlien were all scrapped in favor of a good number of younger boys on Sunday.
One of them had a to say the least fierce debut, and had to deal with Vikings Zlatko Tripic in front of the press stand. The latter nationally known for playing on the border and annoying both opponents and fans. A guy most people want on their team, versus playing against. Hated both in Bergen and Bodø by both players and supporters.
Viking’s Zlatko Tripic and TIL’s Jesper Robertsen (tv) after the end of the match in the elite series football match between Viking and Tromsø at the SR-bank arena in Stavanger. Photo: Carina Johansen / NTB
Photo: Carina Johansen / NTB
Jesper Robertsen (20) therefore had a grown-up task in his elite series debut from the start, and he received the well-known Tripic treatment, which includes strong messages during the match. A little gesticulation to the referee to make him think again next time is also part of the package. The referee is openly beaten, so that the other team gets a card, while at the same time they themselves play both on and over the limit. I’ve seen it many times before and it’s just as entertaining every time.
What Tripic should have is that he does not put anything in between, not even in the mouthpiece. Standing together with Robertsen in the press zone in Stavanger, he allowed the TIL bench to be reviewed, and called the cheers they brought too bad after he had been tackled by the TIL player.
– I do not wish Tromsø anything and have zero sympathy for them losing, said Tripic, who himself had wondered about the Tromsøværing’s yellow card.
The 20-year-old with four years behind him associated with TIL’s A team listened and did not respond as harshly. When you meet such an experienced player, who is last in the Eliteserien and who is also not that driven in the game, there is no conclusion about this. Actually, he should be called Tripic for what he really is on the pitch; a good old-fashioned horse cock.
I can understand that he did not, and rather let it pass. Although it would have been a bit funny if he had used some real northern Norwegian gallows humor, a well-known concept for surviving in adversity.
He instead made sure that the Viking captain got a review on the field, and I think he smiled a little when another youngster, 18-year-old Jens Hjertø-Dahl, clinched Tripic before being replaced.
These extreme types is not everyday fare, and in the same way that RBK’s Ole Sæter provokes many, the alternative is terribly boring. TIL should have had such a player. Not only because of the commitment that comes with it, but because where they are, it is the extreme that can be involved in picking up the eternal points.
The impression from the press zone is that they take it seriously, but that the message is still roughly that they should “take one match at a time”. Last year, TIL became known for the fact that they did not want to talk about medals at all. Now nobody wants to talk about relegation. I would like to see, purely press-wise, that someone took the blade out of their mouth and called a dung spade a dung spade. This season will be about saving the place.
Niklas Vesterlund was a kind of horse-cock type on the pitch, who also couldn’t always stay inside. Morten Gamst Pedersen pissed off many opponents with his dirty tricks picked up from a long career in the Premier League, where this is also an important part of the game. Old heroes such as Tor Pedersen and Tore Nilsen knew well what kind of buttons to press, in order to gain control of the opponents in front of their own goal. Bernt Hulsker still has nightmares about Roger Lange.
The best TIL can hope for now is a boring season, assuming they stop losing games all the time. A position in the upper half is no longer realistic, if they suddenly did not start with something unusual. The winning concept has become last year’s fashion for TIL, even though we have long since entered a new year.
We talked about the crisis a week ago, not much has really changed since then. There is still a crisis, and it will remain so indefinitely. Standing in a crisis situation over time takes its toll, and in the coming days and weeks we will see different reactions to this in TIL.
In the dung smell entered above the beautiful stadium with a sponsor name hardly a mother could love, and the home team scored the winning goal in overtime, was no one actually surprised considering what kind of trend TIL is in.
Now we have to use self-irony and the aforementioned gallows humor in true Oluf style to make it north. Because the backdrop is as bleak as you can get.
