From zero to hero - around the world

After few worse games Smith decided to change tactic a little bit. He pushed defensive line a little higher and ordered his players to play more quick, long passes. His first season was quickly coming to an end, as there were only 6 games remaining. Few poor performances can be enough to get relegated (and to get Smith sacked), so there was high motivation to not let that happen.

Quick goal put Egersunds IK on the lead but some sloppy defending caused quick loss of this lead. Haland missed penalty in 2nd half and Egersunds gained only 1 point.

What a game! This was quite a thriller! Quick 2 goals set up first half but at the very end of it Pors scored and it was only 2:1. Pors were a bit better team in 2nd half and they managed to equalise. Even after that they still attacked with fury and Smith already thought that they might lose. But this day luck was (at last) on Egersunds' side! 2 quick goals for Perttamo in 89' and 90' closed the thriller and Egersunds IK got their long awaited 3 points! Also, this match broke 2 records: number of goals in match and number of goals scored by single player in one match (Perttamo scored 4!):

Again we take the lead and fail to win the game... There too little concentration in the team...

This was very ugly match with not many situations on both sides. Egersunds were a little better side but they failed to score so... again only 1 point.

Will this never end?! This time we managed to lose the lead twice in one game...

Last game of the season was quite decent for us. We were better team and grabbed deserved victory (although only 1:0).

This was the last match of the season, so let's see the final table:

Egersunds finished on 9th place so Smith can be proud of himself. Not only the team haven't been relegated, but they also had 8-point advantage over relegation zone in the end! Few last matches were quite good (despite some lost points due to lack of concentration) and thanks to that some records were beaten!

Below you can see all Egersunds' fixtures from this season (Smith's fixtures have been highlighted):

6 wins, 5 draws, 3 losses - that's not bad, especially because some of those draws and losses were just unlucky (or because lack of concentration). Board also was pleased with Smith's results:

Season has ended and players were sent to long holidays. But there was one more thing that Egersunds' chairman wanted to do. One day he approached Smith and offered him contract extension:

One year extension and still "develop players using club's youth system". Smith thought about the offer for a while and...

... and he decided to extend his contract with Egersunds IK!

Board was pleased with Smith's decision. He had to wait very long for the next official match at Egersunds, because there is huge break between seasons in Norway. Last match of previous season was played on 27.10.2012 and first match of season 2013 will be played on 13.04.2013. It's almost 7 months of break!

During this long break some season summaries took place. You already know that board was satisfied with Smith's achievements, but fans have their word too. They chose best player and best 11:

Around new year new sponsor was found which will now have place on club's shirts:

Other thing which happened after beginning of 2013 was opening of transfer window. This was the moment Smith was waiting for. He immediately started search for players who'd want to join Egersunds. Finally he brough 6 new players into the club. Let's have a look at them:

This guy looks very solid. He should one of the leaders of Egersund's midfield.

Brenne is quite pacey DC. He was brought to club to increase competition among DCs.

Randulff is very young DC with some good skills already. He will not be our primary DC but Smith hopes he has lots of potential.

Lieng will compete with Berg on DL position. They are quite similar players so this competition will be interesting.

Morten Eriksen is very interesting player. He is good striker but will also be able to play on AMC position after short training (he is now 'competent' at playing on this position).

Last player is young MC. He was brought to learn from older players with hopes that he will one day become solid midfielder.

Below you can see Egersunds' all transfers listed:

After a few months players finally returned to club, so this was time to train hard and also play some friendlies:

Results are promising! Pre-season is now approaching its end so in next episode season 2013 will finally start! Stay tuned!

The long-awaited moment has finally come. Season 2013 begins...

... with unfortunate draw. We were a better team than Vard. I can say even more - for the first time under Smith's reign we played football which was joy to watch. We just had bad luck and scored own goal...

We shown Forde today that we are superior team. We should've one 2:0 but again some loss of concentration cost us loss of late goal. Fortunately this time it was not enough for opponents and we won!

This was very tough match for both teams. Everyone wanted to win and final result is fair for both sides.

We faced Follo in 1st round of Norwegian Cup. Follo is a team from 2nd tier so nobody expected miracles here, but they still became true. Very good performance and surprisingly Egersunds will play in 2nd round of the Cup!

Unfortunately cup match cost our team a lot in terms of stamina and we had to play with half-reserve squad against Kjelsas. We played poorly today and deserved to lose, but we lost only because lucky strike went out of the bar, hit our keeper and went into our goal in 78th minute...

We're sitting on 9th place after 4 matches. We have only 4 points less than league leader so we can still even become league leaders. We just need to improve our results (because our style of playing is already nice).

Our league and cup campaigns continue and Smith hopes that his tactic will work better when team gets more familiar with it.

Again we played very well but we failed to win, but this time it was more lucky draw for Pors than unlucky one for us.

We were favorites in our second cup match, because our opponents were from even lower tier than we are. We played with partially reserve squad and grabbed easy victory!

We demolished Arna Bjornar today, but the most important are 3 league points! Finally grabbed with confidence!

Another league match and another 3 points! We weren't dominating today but our accuracy was high and it gave us 3 points.

Very unlucky cup defeat... Early red card put us in trouble for most of the match. We even managed to score but we were to tired at the end of the match and failed to respond to Senja's second goal... It's a pity that we got knocked out from this competition, but we were doomed to lose in first round by experts anyway and we still managed to earn some money:

After our few good results and some lucky results from other teams we climbed up to second place in league! This is amazing and proves that our tactic works (but only if we don't have bad luck ;)). Our players can also be found on high places in rankings:

We got knocked out of the cup so now we have to focus on league only. Can we defend our second place or even attack the leader?

This result is aftermath of our cup defeat. We were tired and we still had this loss in our heads, so we played chaotically and match was pretty much over before we pulled ourselves together.

This match is the proof that there is a lot of determination in our team. We played badly, really badly, but somehow we managed to score 2 goals in last 15 minutes and we got important 1 point!

This was very weird match. Our opponents weren't playing badly but they were loosing quickly after... 2 own goals. Then we scored 3rd goal and everyone thought that it's the end of emotions in this game, but after half time it was entirely different match. We struggled to get possession and they managed to get 2 goals back. Fortunately Grande scored late goal which clinched our victory!

Vindbjart could not win this match but we were close to failing this too. Fortunately Duus scored the only goal of the game and we grabbed another victory.

This is something that I just can't explain... We were attacking for entire 90 minutes, we dominated in all areas but Nest-Sotra got 1 chance after our mistake in defense and BAM! - we lost this... Very disappointing loss...

3rd place in league is still way beyond dreams of everyone from before the season but now we have to think about trying to win the league because only first team gets promotion. We are now 6 points behind the leader so it's still possible to catch them but we can't let them get too far away!

We continue our journey as season is about to enter its second half.

Very easy win for us. Staal didn't do literally anything to score a goal. We scored only 2 goals and they should feel extremely lucky!

Another easy win after amazing hat-trick by Eriksen. Vard scored only 1 goal and another 3 points go to Egersund!

This match was way more even than previous two but we still managed to win this. Our strikers are in form!

We totally demolished Algard today. They didn't even get single shot on goal and their supporters stopped supporting them around 70th minute and left the stadium!

This was a very tough game which we should've won. And we would do this if only referee didn't give free penalty to Kjelsas in additional time! Smith was very disappointed after this result and didn't hide it:

We can till be proud of ourselves though, because we are doing great and media also see that:

So we have climbed up to the very top of the league table! Everyone expected that we will be fighting relegation but here we are - fighting for promotion!

We've had some really great results lately and now we are sitting at the top of the league table. Can we keep that position till the end of the season and get surprising promotion?

We destroyed Arna Bjornar today. Of course their red card helped us a lot.

We dominated our rivals and got another 3 points!

This was our best game in this season! We were just simply amazing. I hope that games like this will bring more supporters to our stadium (for this moment stadium is only full in 9% on average game so it's very poor result).

Every run has to end someday and our run has, surprisingly, ended today... This defeat is a mix up of our complacency and Jerv's incredible luck (they scored 3 goals out of 3 shots on target). I am disappointed but I also hope that this defeat won't start a new series.

This was a very even game in which should end as a draw but, luckily for us, we managed to score a lucky goal and we are back on good track!

We're still league leaders but we have to watch our backs because Kjelsas are only 3 points behind. 4 games remain so we have to be focused and play in the best way we can.

Season's end is very close and we must continue our good results if we really want to get promotion. Can we do it?

We not only failed to win this match but we also almost lost it. Vidar were not an easy side to play against today and we lost 2 points!

We have lost 2 points again! This time it was our complacency which prevented us from keeping the lead... Season's ending is now a thriller for both us and our supporters, and we can only blame ourselves for this situation...

We are back on the right track. We've lost stupid goal again but responded immediately this time and this time we didn't lose points.

In the last match of the season we've created amazing show! Nest-Sotra were unable to do anything and we grabbed comfortable 4-0 win! Now, let's look at final league table:

YES!!! We did the impossible and won the league! This is the historical moment in Egersunds IK history! Everyone is celebrating!

Board's confidence also went up...

... and thanks to that Smith received new contract offer...

... which he signed without hesitation!

Because of rules which apply to all teams in higher division board had to announce one more thing...

This is actually pretty bad, because team had already about -350k balance and now we got another -1M...

Anyway, all players are now on deserved long holidays and they will return to club in a few months. This winter will be tough for Smith though because he has to create plan for next season which will for sure be extremely tough!