Eliteserien: History, Famous Players, Successful Clubs & Betting

  • The Eliteserien is the top flight of Norwegian football
  • Carrying the name Eliteserien since 2017, there has been a one-league top flight in Norway since 1963
  • Read below for more on Eliteserien history

Bettors are spoilt for choice when placing football bets in Europe. The Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga and Serie A may get most of the attention, but there are tens of competitive leagues across the continent, including Norway’s Eliteserien.

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Norway has sprung to the centre of football conversation over the last few years. A Norwegian has been in the dugout at one of the biggest clubs in the world, and a raft of young talents make Norway one of the most intriguing national teams in the 2020s.

The Eliteserien has been a hub of player development, though it still ranks 21st among Europe’s live betting leagues.

According to UEFA’s country coefficients, the Eliteserien places behind Cyprus, the Czech Republic and Denmark. It’s just ahead of Israel and Sweden.

What is Eliteserien?

The Eliteserien is the top football league in Norway. The league took this name on in 2017, after 26 years known as the Tippeligaen. Norway’s top flight has been rebranded several times since it was founded back in 1937 as the Norgesserien.

There are 16 teams in the Eliteserien, which is fewer than Europe’s big five leagues. Seasons run from March through to November, with each team playing one another home and away.

A standard structure for an Eliteserien weekend sees two games on Saturday, five on Sunday and the final fixture played either on Friday or Monday.

The last two rounds are played simultaneously to avoid any team gaining an advantage by finding out other results before they play.

There are 30 matchweeks in the Eliteserien, which has been the case since 2009. There was as few as 10 teams in the league between 1963 to 1971, though this increased to 12 in 1972, 14 in 1995 and 16 in 2009.

Eliteserien History

Prior to 1937, there was no nationwide league competition in Norway. The creation of the Norgesserien saw the first national format other than the Norwegian Cup. Teams were split into groups with the winner decided through a knockout tournament.

Plans to evolve the format were halted by the Second World War. Once sport was back functioning at something resembling normality, the Hovedserien was formed in 1948.

This saw the top 16 teams from the district leagues placed into two groups of eight with the group winners meeting in a final. This lasted until the early 1960s, when the decision was made to merge the two groups.

As change was introduced, the league played an historic 15-month season with half of the teams ultimately relegated. This enabled the creation of a single-league top division called the 1. Divisjon.

Brann won the inaugural 1. Divisjon, defending their title from the previous campaign. A couple of extra teams were added to the top division in 1972.

At the same time, teams from Northern Norway were finally allowed to gain promotion to the top division, though stricter promotion rules remained in place for another seven years.

Due to sponsorship, the league was renamed Tippeligaen in 1990. The first 15 years of this era was dominated by Rosenborg, who won 13 consecutive titles from 1992. Vålerenga ended their run in 2005, pipping IK Start to the title by a lone point.

Rosenborg’s spell at the top coincided with the league becoming professional in 1992. Two more teams were added to take the total to 14 in 1995, and it reached today’s tally of 16 in 2009.

In 2017, the league dropped the Tippeligaen name and became known as the Eliteserien.

Most Successful Teams

Rosenborg are the most successful Eliteserien team by a distance. They have won 26 Norwegian titles, 17 more than anyone else, and all of them have come since the single-league format was introduced in 1963.

What is Eliteserien

Bodo Glimt won their first title in 2020 and second in 2021. Molde have won the Eliteserien four times since 2010.

Viking are the second-most successful Eliteserien team since 1963, winning seven of their eight titles after it became a single league. De mørkeblå haven’t been crowned champions since 1991, though, and have won just twice since 1979.

Famous Eliteserien Players

  • Erling Haaland – Haaland played for Molde from 2017 until he joined RB Salzburg in 2019. 
  • John Obi Mikel – Making just six appearances for Lyn in the mid-2000s, Mikel was subject of transfer controversy before joining Chelsea in 2006. 
  • Kyle Lafferty – Journeyman Northern Irish striker Kyle Lafferty had a brief spell with Sarpsborg in 2019 between stints with Rangers and Sunderland. 
  • Mame Biram Diouf – Diouf caught the eye of scouts when he scored 24 goals for Molde in 2009, earning a surprise move to Manchester United. 
  • Ole Gunnar Solskjaer – Before becoming a club icon and Champions League final hero at Manchester United, Solskjaer scored 41 goals in 56 appearances for Molde across 1995 and 1996. 
  • John Carew – Carew played for Vålerenga and Rosenborg before joining Valencia for €8.5 million in 2000. 
  • John Arne Riise – Former Liverpool left-back Riise started his career at Aalesund and returned to make 13 appearances in 2016.
  • Henning Berg – Berg played for Vålerenga and Lillestrom prior to joining Blackburn in 1993. 
  • Morten Gamst Pedersen – Pedersen played five seasons with Tromsø before playing in the Premier League with Blackburn. Via Turkey, he has returned to Norway in the latter part of his career, playing for Rosenborg before a second stint with Tromsø.  
  • Brede Hangeland – Amassing over 150 appearances for Viking in the early 2000s, Hangeland won a Norwegian Cup and played in continental competition. 
  • Steffen Iversen – A former Tottenham, Wolves and Crystal Palace striker, Iversen is still playing deep into his forties. He started out with Rosenborg and has twice returned to the club. 
  • Martin Ødegaard – The Arsenal attacking midfielder made his Eliteserien debut for Strømsgodset at just 15 years old – he’s the youngest goal scorer in league history. 
  • Nicklas Bendtner – Following unsuccessful spells with Nottingham Forest and Wolfsburg, Bendtner joined Rosenborg in 2017. He won two Eliteserien titles with the club and was top scorer in the 2017 campaign. 
  • Uwe Rösler – At the end of a journeyed playing career, Rösler played 13 times for Lillestrom. He went on to manage the team, and had further spells in charge of Viking and Molde.

Eliteserien Betting

Like so many leagues around the world, outright Eliteserien betting usually features a familiar group of teams at the top. Molde, Rosenborg, Bodo Glimt and Lillestrom are often the title favourites.

Molde are getting a lot of football prediction sport heading into the new season, priced as odds on favourites to win the league.

Reigning champions Bodo Glimt are next in the market before a considerable jump to Rosenborg, Lillestrom, Valerenga and Kristiansund.

*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to AP Photo*

 

FIRST PUBLISHED: 22nd March 2022

March 22, 2022
Football
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Sam is a sports tipster, specialising in the Premier League and Champions League.

He covers most sports, including cricket and Formula One. Sam particularly enjoys those on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean – notably MLB and NBA.

Watching, writing and talking about sports betting takes up most of his time, whether that is for a day out at T20 Finals Day or a long night of basketball.

Having been writing for several years, Sam has been working with 888Sport since 2016, contributing multiple articles per week to the blog.

Sam Cox
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Who Is Peter Walton? Referee Career, Memes, Net Worth & More!

  • Peter Walton is one of the most experienced referees in Premier League history

  • Since hanging up his whistle, Walton has been a regular on BT Sport’s football coverage

  • Read below for more on Walton’s career to date

It’s a decade since Peter Walton’s refereeing tendencies were relevant when weighing up football bets.

Walton, however, has perhaps become more well-known since calling it a day as an official, migrating from the field to the studio with BT Sport.

The Long Buckby native has been the face of a new brand of football punditry as a refereeing expert. It’s guaranteed more time in the spotlight for a man who spent almost two decades in one of the more stressful jobs in sport.

While he was long thought of as one of the best Premier League referees, like any official, he had moments of controversy throughout his career.

Born in 1959, Walton has seen the sport evolve from the riches of the Premier League founding to goal line technology and VAR. He’s overseen some big matches either for their impact on the league table or with silverware on the line.

Twitter Memes

Peter Walton hasn’t been a popular man on Twitter since taking on a job with BT. An inclination to agree with refereeing decisions generally hasn’t gone down well, and some fans have found his comments either vague or tedious in their predictability.

With the cruel nature of social media, any incorrect call from Walton is met with hundreds of critical posts, many questioning how he earns his salary at BT. He’s become the face for fans to direct their refereeing anger at.

Of course, anyone in the public eye gets the meme treatment at some point.

Walton has gone viral on a few occasions, but the most notable of which was when BT accidentally cut to a grinning Walton when Lucas Moura scored a late winner for Tottenham in the Champions League semi-final against Ajax.

It was only a brief snapshot of an overjoyed Walton while Spurs celebrated, but it was long enough for screenshots to appear on social media.

The image of Walton looking down at a monitor has since been utilised by football fans worldwide – there’s no limit to the captions that fit with that photo.

Handball

Amid Walton’s controversial refereeing analysis, handball decisions have often been at the forefront. After all, the handball law has been tweaked in recent years, and the interpretation seems to change on an almost weekly basis.

One of the most significant instances of a dodgy handball call came against Moussa Sissoko when Tottenham faced Liverpool in the Champions League final. Walton – for a change – came down on the side of the referee.

He explained, “Sissoko’s arm is so pronounced it’s unbelievable and when you see the ball coming across like that… yes, it may hit his chest but his arm actually comes down towards the ball as well.

"That gives the referee Skomina no option whatsoever but to award a penalty kick.

“We talk about the law being changed for next year, at the moment it hasn’t been changed, but even under the current law a handling offence there, as we’ve seen consistently in the Champions League this season has been awarded for that type of offence.”

More recently, Walton questioned a decision to rule out a Kai Havertz goal against Everton in March 2021.

It was a rare instance of disagreeing with the officials, but even some Chelsea players weren’t on Walton’s side, with Mason Mount not seeming completely convinced.

Handball calls are going to remain controversial, and Walton will be at the centre of debate on such decisions as long as he’s on TV.

Net Worth

Peter Walton’s BT salary has been a hot topic. Many across the football Twitter sphere have been critical of Walton’s interjections on BT.

It’s not publicly known exactly how much he earns from the punditry gig, but there are various Peter Walton net worth estimations that come in around £1 million.

While a referee can have a big impact on a football prediction, their salaries are minute compared to the players they are overseeing.

A Premier League referee’s salary is somewhere between £70,000 and £200,000. This is way above the national average salary, but those getting Premier League referee appointments are receiving less per year than some players get each week.

Career

Initially refereeing in local leagues in the mid-1980s, Walton ascended to the assistant referees’ list for the Football League in 1993, and joined the same group for the Premier League a year later.

An early high point of his career was being an assistant of the 1996 FA Cup Final. His progress continued after that honour, though, and he was an assistant at Euro ’96 just a few months later.

By 1998, Walton was a referee in the Football League, and he relinquished his assistant duties.

The end of the 2002-03 season saw a few highlights for Walton. He was in charge of the Football League Trophy and refereed a couple of legs of the Football League Playoffs.

Later that year, he was given his first appearance in Premier League predictions, overseeing a seven-goal thriller between Wolves and Leicester.

Walton was a regular in the Premier League throughout the 2000s, including taking on the 2008 Community Shield. He remained a fixture in the top flight until his final match in 2012.

Soon after, he was appointed as general manager of the Professional Referee Organization in the United States and Canada.

*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to AP Photo*

 

FIRST PUBLISHED: 22nd March 2022

March 22, 2022
Premier League
Body

Sam is a sports tipster, specialising in the Premier League and Champions League.

He covers most sports, including cricket and Formula One. Sam particularly enjoys those on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean – notably MLB and NBA.

Watching, writing and talking about sports betting takes up most of his time, whether that is for a day out at T20 Finals Day or a long night of basketball.

Having been writing for several years, Sam has been working with 888Sport since 2016, contributing multiple articles per week to the blog.

Sam Cox
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