‘It’s been quite a journey,’ says midfielder Ulrik Saltnes of the Norwegian club’s rise, an example across Scandinavia

Back in 2011, Bodø/Glimt were cash-strapped and forced into a routine beloved of park footballers. They were labouring in Norway’s second tier and, as their sporting director, Håvard Sakariassen, puts it, had “hit the wall”. Those long trips from inside the Arctic Circle feel even more onerous when you are doing everything yourself and, as they prepare to visit Manchester United, they would be forgiven a moment to marvel at how the picture has transformed.

“We didn’t have a kit manager so we washed our kit at home and came to training already dressed,” says Sakariassen, who had recently quit as a player and found himself taking de facto responsibility for managing the team’s equipment. “To compare that to our resources today, it is a totally different world.”