Football Season Guide

Rosenborg were a hugely disappointing outfit last season as they started with all the fell-good energy of a very strong finish of the year before and indeed seemed to be in title-contending pace in the first ten rounds of the season. But once things started to get slightly against them, they started to lose all sort of composure and balance and got knocked off course once they lost key midfielder Sverre Nypan in the summer. There were attempts to replace him with a few new signings but generally the magic out of that Alexander Johanssen side from 2024 had gone and never really returned as Rosenberg veered from one bad result to another. The season mostly petered out for the final two months, with the players not really buying in and the fans checking out as well. Now the new season gives the chance for a fresh start for the players and the coach, who must be feeling a fair bit of pressure as he knows that a slow and troublesome start will put him on the back foot. The squad looks somewhat refreshed after the winter dealings but not necessarily too much better as the arrival of Mads Bromholt from Aalborg is an interesting capture but he is very much one for the future and expecting him to become the leader in midfield right away may be too optimistic. Leopold Wahlstedt is a proven keeper at this level and is a good replacement for Sander Tangvuk, sold to the Bundesliga side HSV. Some glaring weaknesses, mostly in defence, has not so far been addressed and it is quite fanciful for the coach to expect his side to just get better defensively with the likes of Mikkel Ceide and Tomas Nemcik getting most of the minutes again. There needs to be more focus on the way the team is going to score goals this season and who will be doing it as veteran Dino Islamovic did a decent job last season but he is on the wrong side of 30 and expecting another season like that from him may be quite optimistic. Jasper Reitan Sunde, Simen Nordli and Emil Konradsen are good alternatives in the forward areas but none of them is a real game change and there is just general lack of outstanding quality to make this squad stand out. For that reason, getting a European slot may well be a step too far for the current incarnation of this team.