The Preview That Thinks Joe Kinnear Is Just Misunderstood

Why doesn't Norwegian managers do this, eh? Who wouldn't like to hear Mons Ivar Mjelde or someone completely lose his rag and call reporters every name under the sun?

..aanyway, on to the weekly weekend preview-thingy:

Saturday

Stabæk (1st) - HamKam (13th)

No team in the tippeliga have scored more goals than Stabæk this season and no team in the tippeliga has conceded more than HamKam. Do the maths, and bring your abacus.

Home win.

Sunday

Bodø/Glimt (4th) - Vålerenga (11th)

Unfortunately for Mad Martin Andresen it seems Vålerenga's upcoming appearance in the final of the Norwegian cup isn't enough to distract the board from how bloody awful they've been in the league: "Even though I still have faith in the system, this is far from what we should expect with the squad we have," their chairman Raymond Johansen told TV2 this week. 

Mad Martin is in too much trouble already to start publicly disagreeing with his employer, so he naturally agreed. "He is spot on. After the cup final we will evaluate and possibly make changes," he said, which is manager-speak for "please please let me keep my job". 

Home win.

Lillestrøm (9th) - Fredrikstad (3rd)

Ha ha! Let's all point and laugh at Jon Anders Bjørkøy and Simen Brenne. Why? Because they both left Fredrikstad in favor of Lillestrøm because they wanted to win things. Idiots. 

Draw.

Nelson: Laughing at Brenne & Bjørkøy, like the rest of us

Strømsgodset (10th) - Aalesund (14th)

With HamKam expected to receive a good spanking at Nadderud this is the perfect opportunity of Kjetil Rekdal's strugglers to make up for lost ground. A win here would see them leapfrog HamKam in the table, but as many teams have discovered Strømsgodset are plucky buggers. There's also the small matter of Aalesund's woeful away-record (1-1-9) and Strømsgodset's perfectly decent home-record (6-1-4).

Home win.

Viking (6th) - Tromsø (2nd)

..and here's your weekly Wikipedia-edit, this time from Viking-manager Uwe Rösler's entry:

Uwe Rösler (born 15 November 1968 in Altenburg, East Germany) is a German football manager, philosopher and part-time jellyfish who is currently in charge of Viking in the Norwegian Premier League.

......

Philosophy

A little known fact about Rösler is that he is also a philosopher who is expected to earn significant posthumous acclaim. Following on from the teachings of Friedrich Nietzsche, Rösler has written several works of a philosophical nature such as "If God is dead, what am I?", "A complete survey of parallel planes of existence" and "The transcendental nature of the diving header".

Popularity

Rösler's groundbreaking theory that abusing referees is the modern age-equivalent of the Socratic dialogue has won him many friends, with prominent names such as Wayne Rooney, John Terry and Dean Windass all said to be followers of Rösler's teachings. The idea that one can achieve enlightenment simply by hurling as much abuse as humanly possible at a hapless man with a whistle has been disputed by some intellectuals, but according to Rooney "it's quite good actually". Frank Lampard has yet to acknowledge the school of thought, but has conceded that he thinks Uwe is a "top top philosopher, like a balled, East German-version of Jamie Redknapp".

The Jellyfish-Theory

Another one of Rösler's groundbreaking put somewhat perplexing theories is that one can reach a powerful sense of equilibrium by imitating a jellyfish. This theory was fully developed in his book "The Art of Aimlessness: A study of Jellyfish". On his spare-time Rösler has been known to float aimlessly about like a blob of translucent jelly. Sadly, this has had a hugely detrimental effect on his managing-career as several of Viking's players have decided to base their playing-style on the Jellyfish-theory, with Peter Ijeh in particular mystifying fans and pundits alike with his performances.

Draw.

Rösler: Ich bin eine qualle, sind Sie?

Lyn (7th) - Rosenborg (5th)

Rosenborg are through to the group-phase of that most ridiculously structured of competitions, the UEFA-Cup. They beat Danish side Brøndby 3-2 last night (5-3 on aggregate), even though they had to make do without Steffen Iversen who did what is in some circles referred to as "A Ronny Johnsen": He injured himself during the warm-up. 

Lyn have been on a bit of a downward spiral since their derby-win over Vålerenga, so expect Rosenborg to shake off their euro-hangover and get the job done here.

Away win.

Monday

Molde (12th) - Brann (8th)

Oh dear. One miracle wasn't followed by another. Brann are out of the UEFA-Cup. All they had to do was go to away to one of the most defensive teams in Europe, a team who had scored two goals in their last five games, and defend a 2-0 lead. But even though Deportivo had a man sent off in the first half it proved too tall an order for Mjelde's men and after a 2-0 home win they were dumped out on penalties.

Draw.