Martin Ãdegaard, a CM for Stromsgodset IF in Norway has just received a call up for a friendly match against the UAE later this month. Hell, he must be half decent, Norway are a good side. If you're 15 and getting called up to your national side, you must be some player. He made 14 appearances and scored 3 goals last season, while finishing secondary school. My word.
Saw a youtube video of him recently, he looked very average and that was meant to be his best bits! Some nice tricks but you have to remember the standard of defenders over in Norway. I hope to hear nothing about the lad until he's about 20 years old. That's when we see if he's reaching potential
You don't watch much Norwegian football, old bean. The Tippeligaen is Division 3 (ie. League One) at best. The young chap looks ok, but it's a big step up to the standard of youth teams offered by the likes of Manchester and Liverpool etc. ESSEX GULL
I think you're exaggerating a little. I know that the likes of Rosenborg, Molde and Lillestrom are better than teams like Walsall, Crawley and Fleetwood. It's actually ranked 26th in Europe, which is about halfway and a semi-decent level. For a 15 year old to be a first team footballer in any team is very impressive, regardless of the standard of league. But that wasn't really my point. The impressive bit is that he's been called up to the national team at that age; the Norweigan FA aren't mugs, they must see something in him as he has to compete with the likes of Skjelbred, Yttergard Jensen, Grindheim and Eikrem, who have all played at a decent level and who are all further along in their careers than he is. I do actually catch a lot of Scandanavian football, a lot more than you might think
Faroese? Jeg har fulgt med Brann denne sesongen og Divisjon 3 er noe å drømme om. Standard av norsk (og svensk) fotball har falt enormt i løpet av de siste 10 årene. Brann ville ha vært regelmessig slått av Walsall, Fleetwood etc. ESSEX GULL
Det er helt ærligt ikke sÃ¥ slemt, jeg tror, ​​nogle mennesker glemmer, hvor slemt vores division tre kan. Det kan ikke være, hvad den var engang, men hvis en spiller var at vælge mellem Tippeligaen og Division 3, ville de stÃ¥ i spidsen for den første striaght væk. Jeg kender Finland har en ganske svag liga, men Danmark og Norge jeg altid anset for at være temmelig anstændigt. Ikke huske blæser, forstÃ¥r du.
Not sure if you saw Brann before the summer break (they've improved the past 3 games since) but an semi-pro team would have had a good chance of beating them. They were shocking and their league position shows it. The team that played Everton 5 (?) years ago is a long way away. Jeg tror den danske ligaen er sterkere enn den norske. Det er en reell mangel på kvalitet i øyeblikket, ikke hjulpet av 'piss fattige' brasilianere og afrikanere gjør opp tallene. Men er helt gyldig og rettferdig ditt synspunkt en 15 år gammel spiller for landslaget. ESSEX GULL
I think a lot of Africans and South Americans go over for the work permit thing. The Faroese League has started to see a few of them popping up. I guess it's a way of establishing yourself, if you're a really pacy African winger you're going to get noticed playing in a league in the Arctic circle.
I like to keep an air of formality in my posting style. We're not friends with a casual relationship, we're correspondents on a specific theme. ESSEX GULL
Essex gull, ****ing hell, still posting incessantly about how ace (he wishes) he is since I was reading City Independent about 12 years ago I see? "When the essexgull follows the trawler, it's 'cos he thinks, by someone making a punctuation error, it might give him a fraction of the excitement he wishes he was getting from his fictional jet-setting lifestyle".
