Football Season Guide

Stabæk start the season dearly hoping to avoid all the drama and struggle from last season. They endured a really poor campaign in 2016 and were on the brink of relegation too often. They just about avoided the bottom two spots at the end of the campaign and faced a relegation play-off against Jerv after the end of the regular season. The team from Bærum was expected to show their quality over two legs but they turned a woeful display away from home in a 1:0 loss and seemed to be heading to the lower division as they failed to find a way past their gamely opponents in the return leg at home. But two goals inside the final ten minutes by Ohi Omoijuanfo proved crucial and secured a 2:1 aggregate win. It spared the team from a disaster but they cannot really claim that it was a good season as a whole. There were too many poor signings made last season and the squad just failed to function in the manner it was expected. There needs to be a lot more cohesion, quality and effort all over the pitch from Stabæk this season and the challenge for Toni Ordinas is to prove the doubters wrong and show that he is up for the job. He stepped up from the position of an assistant midway through last season and does not have too much confidence left in the ban after failing to really improve the side after taking over. Yet Stabæk have refreshed their squad over the close season and some of their new signings look promising. El-Hajdi Ba and Tortol Lembi are to bring muscular presence in midfield while Tonny Brochmann is a decent attacking midfielder who has the ability to dictate play. Raymond Gyasi is a decent winger who showed his qualities at Aalesund last season and Franck Boli can prove to be a good signing up front too, even if he is currently injured. The promising Birger Meling joined champions Rosenborg in what is the biggest close season squad loss while Marcus Nilsson and Agon Mehmeti leave serious voids as well. Thus, there is no indication that Stabæk will do much better than last season but Ordinas will hope that he gets more out of the squad and generate some really momentum with a few decent results.