Bodø/Glimt eliminate Inter to reach Champions League last 16 | OneFootball

Bodø/Glimt have eliminated Inter Milan in the Champions League play-offs to reach the last 16, and Jens Petter Hauge and his team-mates want to push on.

After a 3-1 home win in the first leg, the Norwegians won 2-1 away to the Serie A leaders, last season’s European runners-up, to finish the job. Le Progres highlights the scale of the achievement and the club’s modest roots.

Despite their domestic season ending in November, they have won every match since the turn of the year. That sequence includes beating Manchester City 3-1 and Atlético Madrid 2-1 in Madrid.

Bodø is a small Arctic coastal city of about 50,000 people. At Aspmyra, built in 1966 with a capacity just over 8,000, a largely Norwegian squad has flourished after the club nearly went bankrupt in 2016 and returned to the Eliteserien in 2018.

In recent seasons they have claimed four league titles and reached the Europa League semi-finals last year. The model is a selfless collective, aggressively on the front foot, with combinations drilled hundreds of times in training.

Norway head coach Stale Solbakken has called this the greatest club performance by a Norwegian team. Confidence is surging, and Hauge, who scored the opener against Inter, believes they can beat anyone. The next opponent will be either Manchester City again or Sporting Portugal.

Source: Le Progres