Last Friday night on The Late Late Show the Norwegian singer Emmy won the right to represent Ireland at the Eurovision Song Contest with a composition about a dog sent into space by the Soviet Union in 1957.
The concept of Irish people being eliminated in the early rounds of prestigious European competitions by Norwegians is one with which League of Ireland fans are wearily familiar. The most bothersome tormentor is Molde, who have recently played Irish teams in all three major European club competitions and enjoy a perfect record against them.
In 2013 Sligo Rovers made their Champions League debut against a Molde side then managed by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in front of a full house at the Showgrounds, with the Norwegians winning 1-0 on the night and 3-0 on aggregate.
Unfortunately, when Molde returned to Ireland in 2020 they played before an empty house at Tallaght Stadium, beating Dundalk 2-1 in the Europa League group stage before winning the second leg 3-1.
Of greatest relevance is Molde’s most recent visit to Tallaght, in 2022, when they defeated Shamrock Rovers 2-0 in the Uefa Conference League, having already beaten the Hoops 3-0 at home.
To blemish Molde’s record we have to broaden our scope and look beyond senior matches. In September 2017, the FAI under-19 League champions UCD were paired with Molde in the Uefa Youth League. At the Belfield Bowl Molde took a deserved lead but then, in perhaps the most astonishing minute of football ever witnessed on campus, UCD scored twice to win 2-1.
Molde went 2-0 up in the second leg before a goal by substitute Jack Ryan levelled the tie 3-3 on aggregate, leaving the fully professional Norwegians facing the humiliation of being eliminated from Europe by a bunch of amateur Irish students.
But Molde had one trump card still to play. For obvious reasons the Uefa Youth League rule book strictly prohibits a club from fielding an older player but remains silent on using a younger one. And so after an hour the Norwegians introduced a 17-year-old prodigy who had broken into the Molde first team at 16, having made his senior debut for his home club Bryne at just 15.
The subject of this sudden tactical demotion was Erling Haaland, who capped his only ever appearance in the Uefa Youth League by scoring a penalty in a shoot-out that Molde won 5-4.
Hoops boss Stephen Bradley does have experience of eliminating a Norwegian side from Europe as he was manager in 2019 when Rovers defeated SK Brann 4-3 on aggregate in the Europa League. Included in that SK Brann side was Norwegian international striker Veton Berisha, who now plays for Molde, having joined in 2023 for a club record fee of €3 million.
Molde have been crowned Norwegian champions five times but have not won the Eliteserien since 2022, finishing fifth in the last two seasons. Erling Moe’s six-year spell as manager ended in December when he was sacked following a defeat on penalties to Fredrikstad in the Norwegian Cup final, a result that means that there will be no European football next season unless they actually win the Conference League.
Molde are incredibly lucky to still be in Europe this season. They began their campaign with a 3-0 win over Larne in the historic first group-stage match ever played by an Irish League side but only scraped into the knockout rounds thanks to an injury time winner that secured a 4-3 win over FK Mladá Boleslav. That enabled them to finish 23rd in a group stage from which 24 teams progressed.
Rovers finished 10th, only missing out on qualifying automatically for the round of 16 on goal difference. They are the seeded team for the Molde tie, giving them home advantage for the second leg.
Following Moe’s dismissal, Solskjaer turned down a third spell as Molde boss just months after being linked with the position of Republic of Ireland manager. Molde’s new manager is Per-Mathias Hogmo, who nearly became manager of Hearts in October. Hogmo is the first person to have managed both the men’s and women’s squads of a single country at international level, leading the Norwegian women’s team to Olympic gold in 2000.
One familiar face in the Molde squad is Ireland under-21 international goalkeeper Sean McDermott.
Key to the Molde business model is developing and quickly selling emerging talents, illustrated in January when they sold left back Mathias Lovik to Parma for €6 million, with Anders Hagelskjaer joining Wycombe Wanderers for a club record €500,000.
Weeks after David Datro Fofana opened the scoring for Molde against Shamrock Rovers in Tallaght in 2022 the Ivorian forward moved to Chelsea for €13 million, having joined the Norwegian club on a free transfer less than two years earlier. And Haaland was still just 18 when he moved to Red Bull Salzburg in 2019 for €7 million.
Molde’s most successful export remains Solskjaer, who moved to Manchester United for £1.5 million in 1996. The undoubted highlight of Solskjaer’s decade-long career at Old Trafford was coming on as a late substitute to score an injury-time winner against Bayern Munich in the 1999 Champions League final to complete a historic treble.
The Old Trafford link continues into the present squad with captain Magnus Wolff Eikrem, who signed for Manchester United at 16 but never broke into the first team. The next big sale by Molde is likely to be midfielder Daniel Daga, who only joined last month having just turned 18. When 16, Daga was outstanding at the Under-20 World Cup in 2023, helping Nigeria reach the quarter finals where they lost to South Korea.
A crucial part of Molde’s preparations for this tie was a friendly in Spain earlier this month against St Patrick’s Athletic that Stephen Kenny’s side won 2-1. In light of this, Rovers fans will be hoping that victories by League of Ireland sides over Molde really are like Dublin buses in that you wait forever for one and then two come along together.
