There's a very annoyingly paywalled article that was put up after the match that suggests there were scouts from several leagues (Denmark, Czech Republic - Sparta Praha in particular, and England) who were there watching Joe Bell this morning as well.
Interesting. He's already tried Denmark. Prague a great city, but a step backwards football wise.
English heritage. Surely a UK move would appeal the most, if say a decent Championship club.
Bell is 26, and it seems only now potentially really delivering on his earlier promise (thinking back to the 2019 U20 WC). Was sort of the same with Rufer took a number of pro seasons before really taking command of that tricky DM role.
Early days this season in Norway, but good signs for Joe Zen Bell.
Niche Cache. Corner assist from the 5-1 win last week On that note, apparently there were scouts from several different countries (Serbia, England, and Denmark) in attendance for the Hausegund game. This Viking squad has quite a few young players getting minutes – there were only three starters in common from the corresponding Hausegund fixture last season, including Bell – so that’s not necessarily got anything to do with the kiwi midfielder. But there does seem to be a growing feeling amongst VFK fans that they might soon need to resign themselves to selling Bellinho for a second time. Could be something to ponder as we near the European summer.
Bell a full game in a 7-0 cakewalk. Still no Daggers
Asane are based in Bergen, a beautiful city I visited years ago up in the fjords. Not that unlike Wellington. Wiki tells me SK Brann are the biggest club in Bergen - Norway's 2nd biggest city.
A 4-2 win away at the 4x champs. Bodø / Glimt don't lose at their northern fortress very often, and have just come off an impressive run to the Europa League semis.
Caveat being that the home team went down to 10 men at 63 mins, when they were leading 2-1. Viking then scoring 3 goals between 73rd - 91st mins. Bell a full game.
Just found this website (and they have an app in the Google store) where you can watch all the Norwegian league matches for free: https://tv.onefootball.com/en/live-matches They also have all the Finnish league matches live to see any Kiwis who may be playing there. Men's leagues only.
This was the week where Viking were supposed to prove their championship challenging bonafides. They were away to Bodø/Glimt and Molde in the space of a few days. Time to show that all these goals they’ve been scoring and games they’ve been winning were sustainable things.
Guess what? They won both of them. In the space of one week they took down the two clubs that have combined to win the last six Norwegian league titles and with that Viking have moved even further clear in top spot. Yes, they’ve played more games than anyone else. But thanks to these two victories, there’s now nobody who can catch them with their games in hand. All VFK’s gotta do is win their remaining 18 games across the rest of the year and bingo.
Meanwhile, we’re almost exactly a month away from the beginning of their Europa Conference League qualifying campaign. The draw was conducted for that last week and Viking will face the winner of Željezničar (Bosnia and Herzegovina) vs Koper (Slovenia).
Part of me wants him to stay at Viking until after the WC at least! He obviously feels quite comfortable there and it’s showing in the way his game has rebounded of late.
Part of me wants him to stay at Viking until after the WC at least! He obviously feels quite comfortable there and it’s showing in the way his game has rebounded of late.
this and this again! there's a reason he left a 4.5yr contract at Brondby after 1 season and ended back at Viking!
Yes but he's an intelligent young man. He will have learnt a huge amount from his time at Brondby which being brutally honest was a failure.
I'm sure if say a Championship club comes a calling, he will look at the coach, team mates, environment etc etc all very closely being committing to anything. Like most he will be driven to play at the highest level possible, and he does have that UK heritage.
But for now yes he is playing very good football, Viking are genuine title contenders, and he see seems happy there, has learnt the language etc etc. Maybe he does yes stay there until after the World Cup, which obviously will be a big window for him and other AWs