Rosenborg Ballklub were founded in 1917, so this year is the club’s 100th anniversary. Rosenborg are based in Norway’s third largest city, Trondheim and are the most successful club in Norwegian football with 24 league titles and 11 cup wins.
Kare Ingebrigtsen, known as ‘Brutter’n’ (Brother), is the current head coach of Rosenborg. He played for the club from 1985 to 1992 and returned for a second spell in 1993 after 15 games for Manchester City. He went on to play for Stromsgodset and Lillestrom in Norway and had further spells at Rosenborg in 1996 and 1997 as well as winning 23 caps for Norway. He eventually retired from playing in 1997.
Ingebrigtsen became the assistant coach of Rosenborg in 2007, before becoming the head coach of Bodo/Glimt from 2008 to 2011. He then went back to be an assistant at Viking Stavanger from 2012 to 2014, before taking charge of Rosenborg in 2014. Since his arrival at the Trondheim club he has won the league twice, in 2015 and 2016 and was runner-up in 2014, while winning the domestic cup in both 2015 and 2016. They are also on course to win the league this season by a mile, as they are currently 10 points ahead of second placed Molde with five games to go.
Rosenborg are the definition of a 4-3-3 team in Norway with their typical starting-XI being:
Andre Hansen - Vegar Eggen Hedenstad, Tore Reginiussen, Jorgen Skjelvik, Birger Meling - Mike Jensen, Anders Trondsen, Anders Konradsen - Pal Andre Helland, Nicklas Bendtner, Samuel Adegbenro.
Other players to look out for are: Milan Jevtovic, Yann Erik de Lanlay, Marius Lundemo.
Rosenborg are two very different teams domestically and internationally. In Europe, where they come up against tougher opposition, they are more defensively organized, where as in their domestic league they dominate games with possession and create numerous chances.
They have only lost three games so far this season in the Eliteserien, Norway’s top division. 1-0 at home to Haugesund, 1-0 away to Haugesund and a 2-1 defeat at home to Tromso. They were also eliminated in the quarter-final of the Norwegian Cup at home to Valerenga.
Danish international Nicklas Bendtner is the superstar of the team. He’s also their top scorer with 15 goals in 24 games so far this season. While Pal Andre Helland has most assists for the team with 7 in 18 games. Mike Jensen and Anders Konradsen both have 6 assists in 24 games. All four, with Samuel Adegbenro, are key players for Rosenborg.
Samuel Adegbenro came from Viking in the Norwegian league, and he started his Rosenborg career by more or less single-handedly eliminating Ajax from the Europa League. He has 8 goals in the league so far, two of them for Rosenborg.
Rosenborg at home have eight wins, three draws and two losses, while away they have eight wins, three draws and one loss. In the domestic league, they are dominant both home and away. While in Europe they have three wins, zero draws and one loss at home, and one win, two draws and one loss away. They have played against Dundalk, Celtic, Ajax and Real Sociedad already this season.
Thanks to Ole for the preview, be sure to take a look at his pages on Twitter.
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