Football Season Guide

Rosenborg enjoyed a renaissance last season after a few of years of false dawns and misery as they grabbed a European spot ahead of the likes of Molde in the final few weeks and, more importantly, have shown real progress and commitment to playing talented young players under progressive coach Alfred Johansson. They feel like a team not stuck to the past for a first time in at least a decade, possessing the biggest talent in the league by far in Sverry Nypan, who is set to leave in the summer but at least stayed put during the offseason, and the future seems bright for the record title holders at last. Johansson will be naturally aiming to build on the good work from last year, where, apart from Nypan, players like Marius Broholm, Jasper Reita-Sunde and brother Mikkel Ceide and Emil Ceide, made leaps and bounds and should provide the nucleus of the new-look RBK side that will aim to finally compete the title again. Doing so this year against that brilliant Bodø/Glimt side may feel quite a stretch but Rosenborg are not too far away from being the second best side in the league and will look to make a strong start and carry that momentum from the end of last year. Johansson has actually brought in a fair bit of experience to the squad over the winter with the return of Dino Islamovic for his second spell at the club and the arrival of former national team player Iver Fossum. The other arrivals are mostly likely to be depths pieces and generally the starting 11 is unlikely to change that drastically from last year. Losing a reliable, always fit, Swiss--Army-knife of a player in Edvard Tagseth is a blow but not a massive one and there is enough depth in every area for the coach to feel confident a couple of weeks before the start of the season.