Football Season Guide

Tromsø were, along with Sandefjord, the story of last season in terms of excellence and overachievement with limited resources. They secured European football for a second time in three years remarkably easily come the end of the season, having maintained excellent pace throughout and avoided the sort of runs that sapped confidence and belief in the squad. Jorgen Vik maintained remarkable continuity in his selection throughout the team along with his disciplined, no-nonsense approach and all that gave the squad a sense of clarity and purpose on their way to getting to a 57-point tally and a third-place finish. Yet following up on heroic seasons like that is always the trickier part for clubs of Tromsø's size and resources and they will need to really dig deep and find extra levels of endurance and performance in the squad in order to match that. That is complicated by the fact that they have been stripped of a few big players from last season, namely strikers Ieltsin Cimoes and Vegard Erlien. Kent-Are Antonsen andf Anders Jenssen are lesser losses given their veteran age but they had huge influence in the dressing room in setting the tone and being vocal leaders. Therefore, it will be quite an ask for the coach to maintain that sort of morale and camaraderie in the camp but he has been given the chance to sign some promising and interesting young players in Troy Nyhmamer and Mathias Tønnesen. They can become pretty integral players soon if the scouting department at the club have indeed done their job well and their recent track suggests so. More so, they actually managed to keep their biggest prize asset, the breakout star of last year, Aboubacarr Kinteh. The completely unknown Gambian became a sensation once he carved a spot in the backline and at one point last season he has a perfect 100% win ratio when he was starting games for the club, prompting links with Premier League clubs during the winter window. He is inevitably going to go soon but he is staying put for the first half of this season and will certainly be expected to become even better. Therefore, question marks and concerns do persist around this Tromsø squad but this is undoubtedly a strong squad in a club that has been on the rise for a while and there is no reason for them not to target another top-six finish.