Arsenal remained on top of the Champions League on the penultimate matchday of the group phase, which also featured a targeted Jude Bellingham celebration
Jonas Gahr Støre, the prime minister of Norway and the recent recipient of a Nobel peace prize-related missive from President Donald Trump, took in a Champions League match on Tuesday. Bodø/Glimt’s stadium is over 700 miles from Oslo but the prime minister’s long journey proved well worth it. Bodø beating Manchester City 3-1, a first ever win in the group stage, was Norway’s greatest club football triumph since Rosenborg beat – and knocked out – mighty Milan from the competition in December 1996.
This was no dogged, backs-against-the-walls affair. Manager Kjetil Knutsen’s team played fantastic, off-the-cuff football, full of energy in taking down Pep Guardiola’s stars. Jens Petter Hauge’s second goal, his team’s third, was a thing of beauty,
City being so careworn – they are the only Premier League outfit not in the group stage top eight – was a factor but Guardiola was happy to hand credit to the victors.
“The same manager for the past six, seven years, the same players, and that gives consistency in what they have to do, so full respect,” he said. Knutsen was a candidate for the Celtic job that went to Wilfried Nancy, now being looked after by Martin O’Neill on an interim basis after Nancy’s truncated tenure. That Celtic opportunity might come up again soon. City’s players, meanwhile, promised to refund fans who made the trip.
