If Zwickau would buy Messi (nd current)

It takes a lot of imagination. Even more, it takes a vision to see what Jostein Sivertsen sees. Last Sunday Kolstad IL played against Haslum HK. There were 1,800 spectators in the Kolstad Arena, and the guests won easily and easily with 30:20. In Norway’s first handball league, the Kolstader are in ninth place in the table – somewhere in the middle of nowhere in a European league whose level is second class.

Until recently, only a few people outside of town took notice of the Trondheim club – until Sivertsen shared his vision and immediately began to implement it. “If things go according to plan, we want to be in the Champions League, fight for a place in the Final Four and sometimes win the Champions League,” hopes the manager of Kolstad IL. The club wants to be number one in Norway by 2024, from now on playing in the concert of the greats and even being the first violin in the orchestra as soon as possible. It’s like the head of FSV Zwickau declaring that he wants to fight for victory in the football Champions League with Manchester City and Real Madrid in a few years. But Kolstad is not Zwickau, and the world of handball is admittedly smaller than that of football. This also makes the ascent easier.

Sivertsen has been a manager at Trondheim for more than ten years and has so far not been noticed for living far away from reality. “I’ve always had the goal of achieving something big with the club,” he says. In the past few months he has convinced well-known companies in Norway of his plan. The largest supermarket chain is now acting as the main sponsor and obviously provides so much financial means that Sivertsen can turn his vision into reality.

The starting point was last Sunday, the day of the clear 20:30 defeat against Haslum. The 60 less good handball minutes will soon be forgotten, but the press conference afterwards will not. The club and its future figurehead made public what had previously been speculated for weeks. In Kolstad’s attack on the top, Sander Sagosen will be the driving force. The backcourt player, currently still under contract with THW Kiel in the German Bundesliga, is considered the best handball player in the world – and will move back to his Norwegian homeland, to Kolstad, in 2023. Applied to football, this would be equivalent to an announcement that Lionel Messi is moving to Zwickau.

The comparison, however, is flawed, because Sagosen has strong ties to Trondheim and Kolstad. The 26-year-old was born in Trondheim and at the very beginning of his career played for a season with what was then the second division. Erlend’s father is also part of the club’s coaching team. “It’s been a dream for me since I left Trondheim,” said Sagosen. He did not decide against Kiel, but in favor of his family. Such an opportunity is unique for handball in Norway, but also for him personally. With him, the project of the future super team has its most dazzling figure. But he is not the only Kolstad commitment that makes an impression.

With Sagosen, Sivertsen and the club presented five more top-class newcomers last Sunday. Next summer, the Norwegian and Icelandic internationals Torbjörn Bergerud (Gudme, formerly Flensburg), Magnus Gullerud (SC Magdeburg), Janus Smarason (Göppingen) and Sigvaldi Gudjonsson (Kielce) from strong teams from Denmark, Germany and Poland will move to Kolstad. One summer later, Magnus Röd from Flensburg joins Sagosen. Six new top players are already there – and thus the ambitions are clearly underpinned.

The basic structure is in place and promises to meet high international standards. In the coming months, Sivertsen wants to equip the squad with more strong players in order to move up to number one in Norway as quickly as possible in the first step. In the elite series, Elverum Handball must first be ousted from the throne. The club has been national champions for ten years and is currently once again the sovereign championship leader. Since last Sunday there has been little doubt among the handball experts that in future the best club from Norway will be called Kolstad and no longer Elverum.

In Germany, the Norwegian project is being followed with interest and some concern. In recent years, the Bundesliga clubs have used the league in Norway to stock up on well-trained and talented players. In the next two years (at least) four players will leave the Bundesliga in the direction of Kolstad, who have taken on leading roles in their clubs. Most of the Norwegian national team is under contract in Germany. That too could change soon.

There is also concern that the major project in Norway is the second in the Scandinavian region that is in direct competition with the Bundesliga. In Aalborg, the development is even further advanced: The Danish club was already in the final of the Champions League in the summer. Next summer, the club from the north of Denmark caught an international superstar in Mikkel Hansen. As in Kolstad, the project is not based on patronage, but on many sponsors.

Like the Norwegian, the first Danish league was in the past a (self) service shop for the financially much better-off clubs in the Bundesliga. Year after year, the most conspicuous players in both divisions moved to Germany. This mechanism is just beginning to reverse itself. On the day when it became clear that Sagosen would leave the THW Kiel, the record champions lost to the newly promoted TuS N-Lübbecke with a total of 25:29. Uwe Schwenker, who has been a manager in Kiel for many years, is following this development, but reassures him when looking at the consequences. “There are other players coming again,” today’s President of the Handball Bundesliga recently told the “Kieler Nachrichten”. The best from Norway will probably no longer be there in the future, because in Kolstad Jostein Sivertsen is currently in the process of translating a great vision into reality.