BODØ (VG) This is not an unusual sight: in deserted Aspmyra, Elias Hagen (22) makes the trip to hug the ball a little.
“Busted” Hagen exclaims when meeting the stern gaze of physical trainer Orjan Nygård, who in a difficult and subtle distinction between humor and seriousness, says he “should stop this, he trains a lot”.
– He doesn’t scream, he just loves to roar with his feathers, grinning Elias Hagen.
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– It was a bit of a joke, but not everyone takes my jokes. He was a little nervous, but the coach says the next day it’s about when to do it.
The floodlights went out and dusk fell over the city of Aspmera. The Bodø/Glimt players were given actual leave, but a youngster still made the trip to the artificial turf to “cheer” a bit with the ball.
It comes as no surprise that the 22-year-old has been exactly the one who made the journey to run his own training at Aspmyra.
– I’ve always been interested in training a lot and always wanted to.
His former Grorud coach, Eric Keono (now Stabæk coach), said in the podcast “Come on football” This fall, Elias Hagen complained that they did not get enough training.
– I think we trained a little bit and it was very easy, so there were some discussions. Here I think it is good. All the exercises have very high tempo and impact, Hagen says, but then of course it will be different when we have three matches in eight days.
– He’s a soccer fan. He loves training with passes, shooting and things like that, Ulrik Saltnes said about Hagen when the topic appeared on the same podcast recently.
However, it’s no joke when Nygård stands with his index finger.
– What he means is that I will recover more in the next session, so that I can do it with more pushing and intensity. But I feel really better when I get more practice, says Hagen and continues:
– It is, of course, a balancing act, but I have become very good at this equilibrium. I’ve been training for a while now, so it tends to sit well. Only Organ tries to be strict. Kjetil (Knutsen) and everyone else think things are going well.
But in Bodo/Glimt – somewhat simplified – it’s not about quantity, but about quality and severity. A VG journalist incorrectly answers the question of whether or not football is a sport to bear. It’s an intense sport, according to Nygaard.
“The focus is that you have to do everything on the track, it has to be an intensity, or a pace, or a speed that indicates you have to succeed,” he says.
In Tuesday’s training, the reserves are the ones who didn’t start the game against Rosenborg, who is training at a high intensity. A countdown is made from five each time the ball is out of play. Rest periods are short and the pace is high.
It is the typical Bodø / Glimt training. Amahl Pellegrino previously said he was shocked at how hard training was when he came to Glimt last summer.
Captain Ulrik Saltnes appreciates that Bodø/Glimt trains in soccer boots to a lesser degree than any other team in Eliteserien, but what they do is done at a high “intensity”, and according to Saltnes “a diffuse expression” will never be enough.
– In his birth, they trained more than we do, because they have a different structure per week and different structure per week. In Bodø / Glimt you have three training days and less load the day before the match. The principles are quite similar, but it depends on how much load you have. What other clubs are doing, says Nygaard, I don’t know.
Against Rosenborg, the 22-year-old took direct free kicks and corner kicks from both sides.
– I trained some dead balls on Saturday when I was told I’d take them on Sunday, yes, Hagen laughs.
Although he was the only one out on the artificial turf Monday night, he’s not the only one training alone.
– I usually meet someone if I am here one night, it is not rare, but I think that most people are more interested in the physical body and they are in the gym, while I have childish pleasure with the ball. Everything is more fun when you have a ball.
This has always been the case. As a 14-year-old, the Veitvet boy spent one season in Kjelsås, traveling 5-6 kilometers each way to play soccer with his teammates.
– I used to ride a bike with others in Kelsus, and then the house was a short distance away. Then I was there almost all day. I probably went there at 10, and then came home around seven in the evening. We went there and trained, maybe it was a trip to the store and we ate some food, before we watched the first team practice, train more and finally go home in the evening.
Since then, things have gone smoothly for Hagen. Especially in recent years, it has risen rapidly. In 2019, he played in the second division. Two years later, he started and passed to score goals against Roma at Stadio Olimpico.
On Thursday night, Roma will visit Bodo again, where they lost 1-6 and were sent home as slaughter the last time they visited. The park is excited about the kind of Roma who will meet them this time.
“I think they saw other good teams that tried to push us hard and didn’t work, but I don’t think they would play like Rosenborg either,” he says.
The match starts at 21.00 and is shown on V4 and Viaplay.
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