Champions League Performance Insights: How Fredrik Sjøvold highlights Bodø/Glimt’s progression
Friday, October 16, 2026
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UEFA Technical Observer Steve Cooper, working with the UEFA game insights unit, shines a light on a shift in Bodø/Glimt’s approach – with a focus on full-back Fredrik Sjøvold.
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On their path from UEFA Europa League to UEFA Champions League football, Bodø/Glimt have been on a steady learning curve in Europe. As highlighted by UEFA’s game insights unit a year ago, they took the lessons of defeat by Tottenham in their 2025 Europa League semi-final into the subsequent encounter in the senior competition several months later.
With their Matchday 2 win over Borussia Dortmund, the Norwegian team produced another example. After drawing 2-2 with Dortmund last December, coach Kjetil Knutsen said a priority was to “develop our defensive game with regard to pressing and one v one defending in our own half”. In that match they applied 270 pressures in their own half; against the same opponents this week, it was 301.
Sjøvold shines at the back
The excellence of their one v one defending on Wednesday was embodied by Player of the Match Fredrik Sjøvold – and the video below displays the finer detail of his defending, such as his constant scanning and body orientation.
As UEFA Technical Observer Steve Cooper said: “He was never out of position without the ball and dealt with the fundamentals really well: one v one defending, defending the back post, covering the centre-backs.”
Attacking play also impresses
As analysed prior to Matchday 2, a full-back at Champions League level must do more than just defend, though. He will often find himself in advanced positions and this was certainly the case with Sjøvold against Dortmund.
This second video follows the 23-year-old as he steps into a No10 position and Cooper explains: “When they built on the opposite side or on switches of play, particularly in the first half, what he did really well was to arrive in the attack when he wasn't marked and become the spare man.”
That was in the first half and seven minutes into the second, as shown in the final video, he was seen taking up advanced positions again, dribbling inside and eventually finding space in the box to score.
Coaching reflection: Taking lessons and implementing them
According to UEFA Technical Observer Steve Cooper, with each match a coach follows the process of “plan, play, review”. And the opportunity to draw lessons from a performance comes from the third step, the post-match review.
He elaborates: “I always review a game with three things in mind: our usual in-game philosophy; what the particular plan for that game was; and then the things the game threw up that we can learn from.
“As a second point, it's important to talk about the mindset when making tactical changes for the next match. If you don't go into games believing that you can do better than the last time or that the changes are going to work, then often they don't. It seemed to me that the mentality from Bodø was that they could do this and the changes would help.”
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