H. Pereira: Sporting’s secret weapon v Bodø/Glimt, they’ll soon see | OneFootball

Bodø/Glimt has been one of the great surprises of European football in recent years and began to gain international recognition in 2021, when they thrashed Roma 6-1 on October 21, in the group stage of the Europa Conference League. At the time, the Italian team was managed by José Mourinho, and the result marked one of the biggest recent shocks in European competitions.

In the following season, the club from the small town of Bodø – with about 53,000 inhabitants and located in the Arctic Circle region – surprised again by reaching the semi-finals of the Europa League. On that journey, they eliminated two Portuguese teams, Porto and Braga, before falling to Tottenham, who would go on to win the competition.

In the current season, Bodø/Glimt continues to make its mark in Europe: they reached the round of 16 of the Champions League after eliminating Inter Milan and securing victories against Manchester City and Atlético de Madrid; and are now in Sporting’s sights.

“Sporting’s best advantage is that their players are still unknown here. If you ask a Norwegian who Francisco Trincão, Pedro Gonçalves, or Luis Suárez are, they have no idea. They only follow the Premier League and the main players from the Norwegian national team who play in other leagues, like Alexander Sørloth at Atlético de Madrid,” he explained.

The coach believes that this lack of knowledge could work as a surprise factor for Sporting: “At the club, they have certainly analyzed Sporting, but maybe they’re not expecting the great individual quality of the Portuguese players. Perhaps they’ll only realize what a star Trincão is when the ball is already in the net,” he concluded.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.