Norway’s Bodo/Glimt’s fairytale run in the Champions League continued as they knocked out last year’s finalists Inter Milan in one of the tournament’s biggest ever shocks.
A season on from becoming the first Norwegian side to reach the semi-finals of a European competition, following their impressive run in the Europa League, head coach Kjetil Knutsen’s minnows have continued their remarkable rise by qualifying for the Champions League last-16, and as tournament debutants. Bodo/Glimt also operate on a budget that is a fraction of the size of Europe’s biggest clubs.
Bodo/Glimt, who were in Norway’s second-tier as recently as 2017, are the northernmost team to ever play in the Champions League. Based in the small town of Bodo, a 16-hour drive north of Oslo and inside the edge of the Arctic Circle, its whole population of 55,000 could have travelled to Inter’s iconic San Siro and there still would have been plenty of empty seats.
Remarkably, Knutsen’s team are also in their off-season; the Norwegian top-flight ended on 30 November 2025 due to the winter and will only resume when spring arrives in April. But, in that time, Bodo/Glimt have beaten Manchester City, Atletico Madrid and knocked out Italian giants Inter, the runaway Serie A leaders, by beating them home and away
Bodo/Glimt took a two-goal lead to the San Siro after a stunning 3-1 victory in Norway, where they have developed an outstanding record on the artificial surface at their 9,000-capacity Aspmyra Stadion. Then, on Tuesday night, they survived long spells of pressure before Jens Petter Hauge punished Manuel Akanji’s error to silence the San Siro.
As Bodo/Glimt started to play with confidence, Hakon Evjen added an excellent second on the counter-attack, leaving Inter with a mountain to climb even as Alessandro Bastoni pulled one back. A 5-2 victory on aggregate will not only signal a crisis at Inter, the three-time European champions, and in Italian football as a whole, but it will also send shockwaves around European football.
In Norway, they will celebrate a first Norwegian side to win a knockout tie in the Champions League since 1987-88. While Bodo/Glimt are also the first team outside of Europe’s big five leagues to win four consecutive games against teams from England, Spain, Italy and France since Johan Cruff’s Ajax in 1971-72. They went on to win the European Cup that season, too.
This stuff isn’t suppose to happen in Europe these days.
Trust the process
Bodo/Glimt’s close-knit, team-first environment is often hailed as the key ingredient behind their remarkable journey. Head coach Knutsen, who has been in charge since 2018 has been linked with several major jobs and bigger leagues during the club’s rise, but has turned down offers to remain with Bodo/Glimt, where he recently signed a contract until 2029.
“For me, the people are the most important thing,” he told TV 2 in January. “That means more than all the trophies. You always work to win something, and that's great. But the joy of winning it together with someone means the most. There has to be an environment where people care about each other – and I feel we have created that in Bodo/Glimt.”
Hauge, Bodo/Glimt’s top goalscorer in the Champions League this season, now with six goals in nine games, is an example of that spirit. The 26-year-old was signed by AC Milan in 2020 after helping his hometown club’s early rise, before playing for Eintracht Frankfurt in Germany and Gent in Belgium as he attempted to make it at a higher level of European football.
But Hauge, upon returning to Bodo, had the same realisation as some of his team-mates that home was the best place for him after all. It has helped fuel the sense of togetherness at a club that feels as if it has created something special.
Then there is the impact of Bjørn Mannsverk, a former fighter pilot turned mental coach whose unconventional methods are also part of the club’s story. Mannsverk walked into the club when they were in the second division of Norwegian football in 2017 but revolutionised the team’s behaviour through meditation and embracing the process, rather than results on the pitch.
“It is a fairy tale, almost a miracle,” Mannsverk told The Associated Press last season. “How can you actually come from the second division in 2017 to playing Champions League… But I think it’s possible ... if you have the right mentality and you work hard over time.”
The European journey
Bodo/Glimt won the Norwegian top flight for the first time in 2020, repeating that success in 2021, 2023 and 2024, but it is on the European stage where their story has gone mainstream.
They produced their first major shock in 2021 by beating Jose Mourinho’s Roma 6-1 in the group stage of the Europa Conference League, becoming the first team to put six past a Mourinho defence. They also defeated Celtic in the knockout rounds, before falling to a defeat to Roma in an ill-tempered quarter-final.
On their plastic pitch, Bodo/Glimt formed a formidable home record in last season’s Europa League run, beating Twente, Olympiacos and Lazio before defeat to eventual winners Tottenham in the semi-finals.
A first appearance in the Champions League was not entirely going to plan after the first six matches. Ahead of hosting Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City in January, Bodo/Glimt were winless and their hopes of reaching the knockout play-offs were hanging by a thread.
But Erling Haaland’s homecoming to Norway was overshadowed by a dominant performance from Bodo/Glimt, who added their biggest scalp yet. Then, two weeks later, they went to Diego Simeone’s Atletico Madrid and came from behind to win 2-1 and squeeze through from the league phase.
The play-off draw handed Bodo/Glimt with a daunting tie against Inter, the Italian leaders and last year’s Champions League finalists. Sensationally, their story is not done there and they will face either a rematch with City or Sporting in the last-16.