The delicacy is in the details. Minutes before the Bodø/Glimt x Sporting duel in the Champions League, the impenetrable Norwegian who comes out of the speakers gives way to a message of welcome and fair play in Portuguese, the visitors’ language. At the Apsmyra stadium, few understand what is being said, but most know whose voice it is: Thiago Martins.
“You need to talk to him”, warned John-Håkon Nybakk, who manages the club’s official merchandise store, days earlier, when he learned that the reporter was Brazilian. Organizing a rack of yellow shirts that would be sold out before the biggest match in the club’s history, a solid 3-0 victory on Wednesday (11), Nybakk explains that Martins takes care of Glimt’s youth teams. “He’s a really nice guy.”
“I individually develop attackers from under-13 to under-19”, explains Martins himself, who has been in Norway for two decades, most of the time in Bodø. If having arrived in Norwegian football already sounds unusual, the path he took from Javari Street is no less.
“I started at Juventus, in futsal, but it didn’t last long.” The family left Mooca for Itapevi in search of more security. Drifting from club to club, he ended up in São Paulo. “I had coffee with Cafu. All the players on the team had lunch together.” He ended up being laid off and, feeling the need to work, abandoned the sport.
At a law firm, someone told him that studying English would improve his CV and salary. He then convinced his father that it would be faster to learn the language in the USA. Traveled. “After three weeks at school, I didn’t understand anything and dropped out of the course.” Without a visa, it was difficult to find work and, with other immigrants, he learned to order food in restaurants when the kitchen closed and to sleep on the beach.
“I was in California, I thought it was normal. And, when I called my father, I said everything was fine, I was lying, you know?”
One day, sleep on the sand was interrupted by a football game being set up by Mexicans. “And then I said: ‘fuck, man, I’m going to play’, right?” He started in goal and was soon moved into attack. Their success on the field earned them an invitation to sleep on a sofa and an offer for a double job from the group: helping take care of gardens during the week and at football championships on Sundays.
In the Sunday league, he caught the attention of a defender who was actually coaching a college team in Santa Barbara. New invitation, now to return to school and as an athlete. Two years later, he followed the coach to the University of California, where Martins obtained a degree. “I studied geography. It was the easiest course.”
Already a professional, life in the USA continued as a journey, playing for seven MLS teams, with highs, such as best player awards, and lows, two knee surgeries. Another career turn seemed unlikely, but it came. “I got a Norwegian agent and asked him to try something in Europe.” And the agent did it, but in the modest Glimt, then in the second division of Norway.
“When I arrived here, in November 2006, I only knew that the city had 50 thousand inhabitants.”
The first season at Glimt was his best, with 17 goals and access to the country’s top division. The next three, not so much. Another injury and layoff resulted in his retirement in 2010. There was even an offer to play in Oslo, but, with a Norwegian wife and son in Bodø, leaving the city was not an option for the family. “So I did what I had already done in the USA.” He worked in restaurants, cafeterias and even at a school for children with special needs.
In 2016, without stopping working at the institution, he agreed to coach a fourth division team, with which he ended up winning the title. Two years later, he was back at Glimt, as under-17 coach. That was when he met Kjetil Knutsen, a coach who at the same time had taken the first team back to the elite of Norwegian football.
“There were two Brazilians on the team, and they didn’t speak English. Then Kjetil asked me to help with the translation. I spent six months working with him.”
Knutsen, the architect of the revolution that led Glimt to four national titles, the European leagues and, now, the surprising participation in the Champions League in the following years, became a model for Martins. “He’s very good. The mentality is understanding the system, it’s how you can play, even when you’re losing.”
The coach says that it took him some time to absorb the lesson in his work at the Academy, the department that takes care of the club’s youth categories. “When I was a coach, I thought about how to win the game. If the player wasn’t playing well, I put him on the bench. But the job is to develop the athlete. How are you going to teach him just in training?”
Martins highlights the continuity of the work developed by Knutsen as key. “When I worked directly with him [em 2018]there weren’t that many coaches on the team. Glimt didn’t have any money. It took time to develop the system and for players to understand it. It took a while to grow.”
In this 2026, the system has already beaten Manchester City, Atlético de Madrid and Internazionale and reaches the second game of the Champions League round of 16 as favorites — the return against Sporting takes place on Tuesday (17). On the field, Glimt repeats its dynamics like a machine, a disciplined block that goes up and down the field behind the ball without stopping. “He faces the same, goes all out. This mentality is very, very strong”, says Martins, who has a 17-year-old athlete training with the main team.
A very different Glimt from the one the Brazilian met almost 20 years ago. But what about the city? Does Bodø, now with 53,600 inhabitants, still surprise you? “Man, this is Disneyland. It’s the safest place I’ve ever been in my life. For God’s sake, my son goes to school, it’s no problem, you know? My wife doesn’t lock the house.”
