From zero to hero - around the world

Before playing in Adeccoligaen for the first time in Egersunds IK's history we had very long break ahead of us. Preparing team to play in higher division is never an easy task and you can never be sure if you've done everything done. But Smith could be sure of one thing - it's going to be long and cold winter.

As soon as heating began to be installed under the pitch, (pleased) supporters voted for their favorite player and best eleven of ended season. Below you can see their decisions:

Later we made some transfers, although it was really hard this time to bring anyone who'd get team to next level. I guess that we just don't have good enough reputation (yet). Anyway, let's go through our new players:

Old backup goalkeeper finished his contract and we didn't want to extend it, so we had to look for some replacement. Jensen is a bit eccentric but he was the best out of candidates who were free agents and wanted to negotiate with us.

Some of the players are getting older and older and need replacements. Kjetil Boe, our primary AMC, is now 31, so we decided to look for someone who will replace him in the future. Urdal looks "not bad", but we also hope that he will become better player while he will be training with Boe.

We also had to bring some new backup DL, because our DL from previous season was not happy about lack of minutes on the pitch and he left the club. We searched for a candidate for a very long time but there simply was no single good enough free agent that would want to negotiate with us so we had to try to loan someone...

Our last new players is not really a transfer. He is our best young prospect and he was moved to first team from U-19 team to get some higher-level football. Board wants us to develop players using our youth system and it counts, right?

Below you can see our transfer summary:

As you can see, a lot of players left Egersunds IK this winter, but they were mostly mediocre/weak players and we will not cry after them.

We also played some friendlies before start of new season:

Great results! We played 8 matches, won 6 and drew 2. We can be especially happy about big win against Valerenga!

Season is about to begin, so wish us best luck! We will need it...

The time has come - season 2014 finally kicks off!

We got totally demolished by Tromso today... We scored quick goal but it only angered them and then we got destroyed. This match only proved us that this season is goin to be really tough, although for sure not all matches will be that tough, because Tromso are for sure one of the strongest sides and favorites in fight for promotion. Nevertheless, everyone is disappointed with such high loss...

This time we played way better than in last match. We were even close to winning, but unfortunately Ranheim scored 3rd goal and we got only 1 point. It's Egersunds' first point in Adeccoligaen in history!

This match only proved us that we have to fight for each win till the very end. We got our first win but I have to tell you that entire match was quite a thriller, and that's why you can see highlights below:

Everyone expected Follo to demolish us in similar manner that Tromso did a few matches ago, but we are playing better and better with every match. I guess that players are just more accustomed to playing on higher level and are less nervous. This time it was not enough and we lost, but there are many teams (theoretically) weaker than Follo so we shouldn't cry too much.

We played very well again and grabbed unexpected 3 points! I was already happy that we will have 1 point but then we performed great counter attack and Urdal scored very nice goal!

We have denied all "experts" who expected us to finish on last place and we are sitting comfortably in the middle of league table after 5 matches instead. It's still only beginning of the season though but if we keep up our form it can end well!

After quite good start we continue our league season and also Norwegian Cup is about to start. But before we go through some matches, I have little announcement to make! We have just signed new player (for free)!

Vindenes is a solid Ball Winning Midfielder. He will make our squad more injury-independent.

We have lost a goal just before half time today but after half time talk players performed waaaaaaaaaaay better in second half and we grabbed deserved 3 points!

Our first cup game was supposed to be an easy one. Gjovik are, after all, team from lower division than us. They were, however, really, REALLY hard team to crack in defense. We were just hitting a wall for entire 90 minutes. Fortunately for us, we were able to score a goal in extra time (it was our only shot on target in entire game) and we advanced to 2nd round, but we can't be proud of ourselves for sure! It was only a lucky win...

Back in the league, we've managed to grab another confident win, although our players were really tired after cup match!

We've won in 2nd round of the cup but it was (again) not an easy match for us. We were losing after half time and (again) I had to yell at the whole team during half time break (sir Alex Ferguson style, kind of). It worked miracles - it seemed like another team were on the pitch in second half! We scored easy 3 goals and we will play in 3rd round, so we will have at least the same cup result as last season.

We were again tired after cup match, but again we've shown our rivals that even a tired tiger can still bite! Fantastic result gives us another important 3 league points!

We're now sitting on promotion playoff spot. We've won a couple games in a row and team looks really confident of their skills. If we can keep this up, maybe even promotion-miracle can happen?

We continue our great run and beat another team in league! Our supporters probable start to believe that we may have promotion chance. I can't blame them - we're playing very solid football lately.

Thanks to our great results in May, we've won two following awards!

We failed to win this time but I can't blame my players. We played well and we are still maintaining our unbeaten run.

We were a better team today but we lacked accuracy and that's why we only got 1 point instead of 3.

Another draw in a row, but this time it was really, really lucky one. Just look at the stats and you'll see that Odd were dominating in this match. That's why we can be happy with 1 point.

We faced team from 1st tier in the cup (and really well known too), so everyone expected that we will get easily beaten. We looked really badly in first half and were losing 0:1 at half time, but in second half things started to look better for us. Unexpectedly, Walde leveled the score in 53th minute and since them we were dominating, but still unable to score another goal. We were still dominating even after Diez got injured in 84th minute and we had to play with only 10 men. Extra time passed without result change and penalties had to decide who will go to 4th round of the cup. Everyone was really tired (in both teams) but we were a little bit better and we will play in 4th round of the cup!!!

We're still sitting on promotion-playoff spot in league table, but we have only 4 points less than leader. We will try to fight for 2nd place to get promotion without playoffs.

We've made a few surprises in cup this year, but unfortunately this time we failed to make a surprise. Viking were far better team and we ended our cup journey in 4th round. Our only goal was very nice though:

We managed to get a valuable draw against very strong Stabaek side. We can be happy with that, although we are not happy that we haven't won in a couple of league games now...

We finally got our league win! And it was a really convincing one - our opponents didn't even have single shot on target!

We played really poorly today and we deserved to lose... At least our only goal was quite nice:

We grab another convincing win, so we can be happy that previous match was only some little glitch on our form.

We're still on 5th position and not so far even from leader, but we have to start winning constantly if we want to fight for top 2. Board has also surprised me by putting some money into the club (it only cuts our debt by 1/3 but it's still something):

We got our revenge against Tromso today. After embarrassing defeat at the beginning of the season we learned from our mistakes and in this game we were formidable opponents for Tromso. Luck was on our side and we got 3 points!

We were much better team but we let victory slip from our hands in last minutes. I don't know what we missed the most in last minutes - stamina, concentration, luck?

We lost 2 points again after controversial penalty and red card for Berg in additional time... Maybe we are not so worthy to get promotion after all?

Finally we get a win, although I was (a little) nervous when Follo scored their (luckily) only goal.

We fought today till the very end but everyone could easily see that we didn;t play well. We were just hitting the wall for most of the match. No points and smaller chance of getting automatic promotion.

9 matches to go and 6 points less than 2nd place. 1st place is no longer and option but we can fight for 2nd spot. But can we do it with tired team?