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On Tuesday, Manchester City made the trek to Norway for a Champions League showdown with Bodø/Glimt. They were accompanied by hundreds of fans who headed to the Arctic Circle in the hopes of seeing their team walk away with a win, and they’ll be getting a refund courtesy of the players who failed to deliver.
2026 marks the 70th anniversary of Real Madrid’s victory in the first-ever European Cup, which featured 16 of the most talented professional soccer clubs on the continent competing in an international tournament to crown the one that earned the right to call itself the best one in the land.
That annual showdown has been known as the Champions League since 1992, and as things currently stand, 24 different teams from ten separate countries have been crowned the victor.
Manchester City became the sixth one from England to hoist the trophy after surviving the gauntlet during the 2023-24 campaign, and they punched their ticket to the ongoing tournament with a third-place finish in the Premier League last season.
Norway, on the other hand, is still in search of its first Champions League title. This year, Bodø/Glimt was one of the two teams from the Eliteserien who got the nod, and the squad that has earned a spot four times since making its debut in 2021 was facing an uphill battle to advance when it hosted Manchester City on Tuesday.
However, it managed to pull off a stunning upset while forcing players on the losing team to shoulder some financial losses in addition to the one they were handed on the pitch.
Manchester City players have offered to refund hundreds of fans who traveled to Norway to watch them lose to Bodø/Glimt in a Champions League game
Bodø/Glimt basically came out of nowhere to emerge as a Norwegian soccer juggernaut at the end of the 2010s. They were promoted to the Eliteserien ahead of the 2018 season before winning the league in 2020, which marked the first of four titles it won in the span of five years.
The team’s venue, Aspmyra Stadion, can only accommodate a little more than 8,700 fans, and the demand for tickets has led to some Norwegians turning to barters involving fish and reindeer meat to attend big games. It would be a stretch to call the city of Bodø remote (it has an airport if you want to avoid the 16-hour drive from Oslo), but it is relatively isolated and located just north of the Arctic Circle.
On Tuesday, close to 400 Manchester City fans decided to make the journey in the hopes of watching a team that had a 3-1 record in league play get what appeared like it would be an easy win against an 0-3-1 opponent that seemed well on its way to elimination.
However, Bodø/Glimt was responsible for one of the most stunning upsets to unfold in Champions League play in quite some time.
Kasper Høgh scored two goals in the span of three minutes in the first half before Jens Petter Hauge extended the lead to three ten minutes into the second. Man City quickly responded with one of its own before going down to ten men after Rodri earned his second yellow with a little less than 30 minutes left in the match, and the home team took advantage while preserving the 3-1 score that stood until the final whistle.
That was obviously not an ideal development for the fans who made the trek from England to watch that embarrassing display, and according to ESPN, the team’s captains have offered to refund the cost of their tickets after letting them down.
The 374 fans who will be getting their money back will still be on the hook for the traveling and lodging costs, but the players will fork over around $13,400 in total to reimburse them for the tickets they bought (which averages out to around $48 a person).
Manchester City is still on track to clinch a spot in the knockout phase with one game against Turkey’s Galatasaray remaining in the current stage, and while the win provided Bodø/Glimt with a glimmer of hope, they’ll have a hard time advancing even if they’re able to pull of another unlikely victory by beating Atletico Madrid on the road on January 28th.