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“We’re underdogs and we have nothing to lose,” says Brann’s Justine Kielland. “So we’ll just go out and do what we’re good at.” At 21, the midfielder is looking forward to the biggest game of her life so far: a Champions League quarter-final against the defending champions, Barcelona, on Wednesday. Such progression is rare for a Norwegian women’s side, with Røa the last club to make it this far back in 2010.
Brann are the biggest underdogs of these quarter-finals. There are a couple of other surprise contenders: Ajax were the first Dutch side to reach the tournament’s group stages, let alone the knockout rounds. But Brann are the standout anomaly: out of the eight quarter-finalists, the club had by far the lowest Uefa coefficient ranking by the end of the 2022-23 season, at 64, with the next nearest being Ajax at more than 30 higher. It is unfortunate, then, that Brann have been drawn against the club with the highest ranking of them all: Barcelona.
Kielland, though, is unfazed. “We’re really excited to see how it is to play out there with the best team in the world,” she says. “It will be a good test for all of us, both as a team and individually to see where we’re at and what we can achieve from that game.” Out of the Barcelona squad, she’s most looking forward to playing against Keira Walsh who, she says: “I’ve looked up to for a long time and I really enjoy seeing play.”
Taking down the Spanish giants seems an almost insurmountable feat but Brann have sealed one shock result this tournament. In December, the Norwegian side came from behind to draw 2-2 against Lyon, eight-time title winners. Kielland scored in that game. “It was,” she says with a smile, “an extremely good feeling.” Her performances in the competition have boosted her international presence, too. Last month, she made her senior debut for Norway. “I think the Champions League has been a very good platform to show ourselves and what we’re capable of,” she adds. Kielland will also take on her national teammates Caroline Graham Hansen and Ingrid Syrstad Engen on Wednesday.
The fans are behind Brann, who are based in the coastal city of Bergen. Tickets sold out for Brann’s home leg of the quarter-finals, at the 3,700-capacity Åsane Arena, within eight minutes. The second leg will be played on 28 March, at Barcelona’s Estadi Johan Cruyff. For Amalie Eikeland, another Brann player, this strong support has contributed to her side’s success in the tournament. “We are a team that no one really expected much from going into the group stage – no one knew about us,” she says. “I think, with the fans supporting us, and then we had nothing to lose really, played a big factor in how we performed.”
A video of Brann’s last-minute equaliser during that home draw against Lyon shows the passion of the club’s fans: supporters flock to the pitch side hoardings to celebrate with the players. Kielland says: “It means a lot to the whole team that the fans are really cheering for us. And it means a lot to girls’ football in the whole region, to see that it’s possible for the girls to do something big as well.”
Incredibly, this is only Brann’s second campaign in Europe, as the women’s team was only incorporated into the wider SK Brann umbrella in 2022, having previously played for decades as part of IL Sandviken. The club’s success comes after a shake-up over the summer, with several players leaving the club, including Lisa Naalsund for Manchester United, and new signings coming in, both Keilland and Eikeland among them. Last year, the club signed Andrine Hegerberg, sister of Ada Hegerberg, from Häcken, although she is currently out injured.
The team got a new head coach, too: the Englishman Martin Ho joined in July after three years as an assistant coach at Manchester United. Ho’s arrival has made a big difference, says Eikeland. “He had been in England for a long time, so he knew what’s going on over there. And he brought that in – that professionalism, the standards, the high intensity … just the way we play, the principles and playing on the ground, and to have confidence in that has helped us a lot.”
While Eikeland, who grew up in Bergen and supports Brann, is under no illusion that Wednesday’s game against Barcelona will be nothing other than a “tough match – a really tough match” she is ultimately looking forward to it. In particular she admires the playing style of Aitana Bonmatí. “It’s going to be a cool experience to play against the best,” she says. Then, she echoes the words of her teammate Keilland: “We have nothing to lose, we just have to give it our best. We have the city behind us.”
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