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couldn’t even get a Fifth Division side to go to the trouble of submitting a transfer form to the local association. Players who were perfect for Bugge’s plan.’
    ‘Perfect?’ asked Benedikte.
    ‘These people were so bad that nobody wanted them, while they themselves thought they were good enough for any top-flight Norwegian team. Then Bugge played on the fact that Golden and the other agents could easily demand 20–30 per cent of players’ salary, which of course can be enormous in cases when players earn 20–30 million kroner. So, instead, Bugge asked for what he called a symbolic payment, in other words a flat payment of 1,000 kroner a month.’
    ‘So Bugge’s profits are based on his number of players?’ asked Benedikte.
    ‘That’s right. If he could get enough players to pay 1,000 kroner a month, he could just lean back without doing anything at all and make a good wage for himself.’
    ‘Genius,’ said Benedikte.
    ‘Just one problem. Judging talent is an art. Anybody can see that Stanley from Skeid is going to become a professional footballer, but often the next best players carve out careers for themselves too, not least out of real need or hunger, and it’s a lot harder to gauge those ones. Two of Bugge’s players turned out well: Kalid Jambo and Otto Cana.’
    ‘I didn’t know Bugge was their agent. I thought they were with Golden Boys too,’ said Benedikte.
    ‘They were with Bugge until they were selected for the national under-17 side. Golden became their agent immediately after that.’
    ‘How did he get them away from Bugge?’
    ‘I don’t know. Who knows how Golden really operated? In any case, Bugge’s now more involved with the better players. Actually I think he’s dreaming of signing Stanley,’ said Sennikov.
    ‘Why haven’t you taken him on? I thought Vålerenga could practically have any players they wanted in Oslo.’
    ‘He’s too good.’
    ‘Too good?’
    ‘He’d leave Norway before playing a single first-team match with us. The big international clubs are counting down to his sixteenth birthday next year, when he’ll be able to go abroad. The only unknown about Stanley is who’ll be his agent, and who’ll end up hauling in the big catch.’
    ‘What would you advise Stanley to do?’
    ‘The same thing I advise all players. Listen to your coach and stay away from agents.’

Soul of Fire
    ‘It doesn’t look good,’ said Dr Ramstad, putting his hand on Steinar’s shoulder. Bjørnar Ramstad and Steinar were childhood friends, having grown up together in Lofthusveien, in the East End of Oslo. Practically every time they’d met as adults, they’d argued about which neighbourhood Lofthusveien was in, whether it was Grefsen or Årvoll, but not today. Steinar nodded ever so slightly before drawing his breath and opening the door to room 3206, on the second floor of the Cancer Centre at Ullevål Hospital.
    Steinar’s old coach, Ståle Jakobsen, was sleeping in bed. Jakobsen was a football coach of the most politically incorrect school. He wouldn’t have given a damn about giving a seven-year-old a dressing down for a poorly executed tackle, and ideas such as squad rotation or prizes for everybody weren’t part of Jakobsen’s ideology. Nevertheless, warmth was the quality that Steinar associated with him most.
    He turned back to Bjørnar and whispered: ‘Bloody hell, he’s fat!’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘How did he get so fat?’
    ‘How long has it been since you last saw him?’
    ‘A few years.’
    ‘Same here. So I made some enquiries. He’s barely left the sports centre over the past few years. He stopped eating his dinners and was living almost exclusively on energy bars and XL-1 energy drinks.’
    ‘He loved that indoor pitch. He was the one who got it built, after all. He even threatened to beat up people from the council’s planning department, and they coughed up the money in the end. What he did was a political miracle here in Oslo, where it’s only