Ryan Nikolas Behr
Tribune News Service
OSLO, Norway — “What do you mean the seats don’t come down!” were the first words from my mom when she found out that, because we were in the “ultras” section, we would have to stand up the entire game. We had arrived in Oslo from Tallinn, Estonia, two days prior, and this was the moment the whole trip was centered on: a professional football game between Valerenga and Haugesund, two Norwegian clubs.
If I am being honest, they are two bang average teams at best, sitting 14th and 12th, respectively, in the Elitserien (the top Norwegian football league). However, as in most games, both teams fought very hard and there were many fouls — which were fun to see.
It started for me that evening when we took a taxi from our hotel to the Valerenga stadium, the Intility Arena. When we arrived, our first stop was (obviously) the club shop, because you cannot sit with the ultras wearing a T-shirt that says “USA! USA! USA!” We got a Valerenga scarf and a jersey and considered getting a team flag, but it cost the equivalent of $80, and it did not make sense to buy and use it only once.
I had never been to a European football game, but I had seen New York City FC in Yankee Stadium at least 10 times, and I will say the quality and fan support at Intility Arena, even for a bottom-table league clash, was immense. Although a bit more than half of the seats were empty, if you were in the ultras section, your ears did not get a break through the entire game.
The quality of the football was much better than that of MLS back home, even though the Norwegian league gets less recognition than MLS because of its lack of foreign stars.
One foreign player doing the bits for Haugesund was 6-foot-1 winger Sony Diarra (from Mali), who drew first blood after just seven minutes with an outstanding long-distance effort that slid beautifully into the bottom left corner. Even after this goal, the ultras were still chanting as loudly as they could, which might have had the opposite effect on the home-team players as they fluffed some easy chances when noise could have been an issue. (There was actually an invisible split between the ultras and the ultra-ultras who orchestrated the chants.)
Speaking of chants, there was a moment in the game that really stood out as my favorite. The adults in the ultras section had a chant-off with a nearby section full of kids from what I assume was a youth team in the area. Someone had purchased almost 30 seats for the kids, and it was honestly quite cute to see them try to out-scream the adults. They finally stopped first because none of them could have been older than 10, but they tried nonetheless.
One team not getting much support was Haugesund, with there being at most 50 traveling supporters to watch their team play. You could not hear them at all over the commanding noise of the Valerenga supporters, which was surely their intention. A while later, Valerenga scored a goal, and the fans didn’t cheer because everyone could tell it was offside.
The goal drought ended in the 71st minute after midfielder Petter Strand scored a volley from point-blank range, which tied the game 1-1. After this goal, the stadium erupted, and the atmosphere was electric for the rest of the game, with another goal just a whisker away. The score would not change, however, and the points were shared at the Intility Arena.
This did not change the fact that it was an amazing experience for my family and me, and if I ever do find myself in Norway again, I will attend another game. I am not sure about my mom, though; she was sore about the 90 minutes of standing, and I doubt she will do that again for a while.
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ABOUT THE WRITER
Ryan Nikolas Behr is a freshman at Columbia Preparatory School in Manhattan. A dual U.S.-German national, he has visited Europe several times with his father, travel writer Alan Behr, a contributor to Tribune News Service.
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