The Athletic article on Espen Baardsen

Anyone else see this? Really interesting feature on a player I'd forgotten about- I hadn't realised he retired at 25 and went into corporate finance. Fascinating stuff on how he felt the most successful goalkeepers have an attitude that they never make mistakes, like Schmeichel, which he finds a bit weird and didn't have. Also interesting how the other players would ridicule him for reading finance textbooks on the bus when all they were interested in was Sky Sports News. Good offbeat stuff on the Athletic.

Are you a pr from athletic

I found the Athletic to be extremely pretentious. This subject is perfect. Intelligent footballer leaves the game to pursue career in finance, ignores ridicule from the cavemen players he had to endure working alongside.
Yeah, right, like there aren’t much bigger wankers in world of corporate finance than you’ll ever find in any sport?

To be fair, Espen looked the part, just a shame he never played it. Anyway, didn’t he embark on his next career quite sometime after he finished with football?

SugarRay said:

I found the Athletic to be extremely pretentious. This subject is perfect. Intelligent footballer leaves the game to pursue career in finance, ignores ridicule from the cavemen players he had to endure working alongside.
Yeah, right, like there aren’t much bigger wankers in world of corporate finance than you’ll ever find in any sport?

To be fair, Espen looked the part, just a shame he never played it. Anyway, didn’t he embark on his next career quite sometime after he finished with football?

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The other issue, personally speaking, about the Athletic is that it caters to those with a deep interest in sport.

Not that I feel that’s invalid, only that for those like myself, who only follow one sports team and have no real interest in sport, the rest of the content is of little or no interest, so I would probably never subscribe.

The one thing I will say is that even with pretentiousness, the standard of writing is better than most of the rest of the mainstream media, who seem to be engaged in a crappy race to the bottom quality-wise (and not just on the sports side of things).

alexis said:

Are you a pr from athletic

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Wow. No, I'm not - I just thought it was an interesting article on an ex Spurs player that people on here might be interested in. Clearly a lot of hate for the source so I won't do that again.

Watched us play Liverpool at the Lane and Baardsen was in goal.

I remember him bending down and touching his toes near the edge of his penalty area as McManaman was bearing down on goal. Easiest goal he ever scored.

That is my Baardsen story.

Not sure why but I really liked Baardsen when I was a little kid. Guess he just seemed a more imposing goalkeeper than Ian Walker. Maybe he got a clean sheet on his debut too?

I even got that ICONIC orange and blue striped goalkeeper top for my birthday!



Crazy days.

He had a great game at Highbury when we drew 0-0 there. Lauded it over my Gooner mates all week at school.

If there was ever a paragraph of words to epitomise how desperately shit the late 90s were, then that one will certainly do the job...

Good article in Athletic today on Tottenham best ever striking partnerships

This was Berbatov on Robbie Keane

“It was my best partnership. We just understood each other. He knew who I was. He wasn’t going to bother me and ask why I wasn’t speaking, and I respected that. We had an understanding on the pitch and I always knew where he was.”

tototoner said:

Good article in Athletic today on Tottenham best ever striking partnerships

This was Berbatov on Robbie Keane

“It was my best partnership. We just understood each other. He knew who I was. He wasn’t going to bother me and ask why I wasn’t speaking, and I respected that. We had an understanding on the pitch and I always knew where he was.”

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No way. Our best ever were 1. Greaves and Smith; 2. Greaves and Gilzean; 3. Gilzean and Chivers.

I haven't read the full article yet but I would have thought it would have been Greaves and Gilzean

pangtong said:

Not sure why but I really liked Baardsen when I was a little kid. Guess he just seemed a more imposing goalkeeper than Ian Walker. Maybe he got a clean sheet on his debut too?

I even got that ICONIC orange and blue striped goalkeeper top for my birthday!



Crazy days.

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He had godly stats on cm, if I'm remembering correctly, so people rated him. He was shit.

He was actually really good when he first played.. I was a big fan.

Duke of Northumberland said:

Wow. No, I'm not - I just thought it was an interesting article on an ex Spurs player that people on here might be interested in. Clearly a lot of hate for the source so I won't do that again.

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Ignore people and post what ever you find interesting.

I am going to piggy back on your thread and post this.

chinaman said:

No way. Our best ever were 1. Greaves and Smith; 2. Greaves and Gilzean; 3. Gilzean and Chivers.

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Imagine Greaves and Berbatov!

JW72 said:

Imagine Greaves and Berbatov!

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Both were supposed to be lazy; so a double negative is a positive.

hope he's a better investment banker than he was a goalkeeper

chinaman said:

No way. Our best ever were 1. Greaves and Smith; 2. Greaves and Gilzean; 3. Gilzean and Chivers.

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Greaves alone would easily make it as a top 5 partnership of all time.

Espen Baardsen is a curious case - also for Norwegian football fans. Born in the USA by Norwegian parents, he´s never lived in Norway. He played for the US Under-18 national team, but switched to Norway and represented the country in more than 30 international games at U-level. Later he started 4 games for the senior national A side (1998-2000), but missed a spot in the squad for the Euros 2000. Hardly any Norwegians knew of him before Tottenham picked him up as a hot talent while playing for the San Francisco United All Blacks. Tall and having all the physical attributes you would like to see in a goalkeeper, he was soon touted as Thorstvedt´s heir for the national team.

Baardsen played in only 29 games for Spurs, and kept 8 clean sheets. He was part of our Worthington Cup (League Cup) winning side of 1998/99 and played 3 out of 8 games on our way to that title. Later sold to Watford in the then 1. division (Championship) and was supposed to become their No. 1, and started both seasons as the preferred ´keeper, but eventually lost his spot to team veteran Alec Chamberlain in both seasons. Was loaned out to Everton and played only one game for them: a premier league match against Tottenham at the Lane in January 2003 where he sympathetically let in four goals so that we could win the game 4-3. Robbie Keane got a hat trick. At the end of that season he retired from professional football at the age of 25 - hardly an age for a goalie.

For a small footballing nation as Norway it was in a way sad that he never really and fully delivered on his promise, because the talent was clearly there. But his head was probably not really into it, and he´s probably happy with the choices he made. In a way it´s kind of remarkable that any young professional would walk away from professional footbal and all the money and glory to pursue a totally different career. One thing is injuries etc., but just because you´re not finding the point of it all or the mental challenges: I think he should be respected for it. At the same time it is also a very interesting example of an obviously intelligent young man not having the right psyche to be able to compete and feel comfortable and at home in the world of sport: it tells something about the determination and drive you need, and that talent is much more than only the physical part. But to add to the intrigue or conundrum, he was still able to succeed in a very competitive business as finance.

Trivia: In the 90s Spurs had no less than three Norwegian international goalies - all of them winners of cup winners medals in English football.

Most remember Erik "The Viking" Thorstvedt (1989-95, 218 apps, won the FA Cup in 91), who was the undesputed first choice for Norway from 1982 to 1996, accumulating no less than 97 caps.

Espen Baardsen is another of the trio - but: who was the third?

Chelsea won the FA-Cup in 1997 - keeping a clean sheet in the final. It was the only game Frode Grodås played for Chelsea in that tournament. In January 1998 he signed for Tottenham for a fee of £350K. Grodås had been Norway´s No.2 goalie since the late 80s - and since Thorstved´s retirement he was the obvious No.1. But Grodås never played a single minute for Spurs: Christian Gross had bought him as a veteran back up for Walker/Baardsen, and even though Walker was injured and Baardsen cost the team points in some matches, Grodås never got further than the bench. Gross wanted to give Baardsen needed experience and build for the future, and Grodås left for the Bundesliga and Schalke 04 in the summer for less than half of what Tottenham had paid for him. In that summer of 1998 Grodås had a very successful World Cup for Norway as the team captain, with Thomas Myhre of Everton as second choice and Baardsen as the clear third choice goalie. Grodås retired in 2002 after 50 full international caps for Norway.

eddiev14 said:

He had a great game at Highbury when we drew 0-0 there. Lauded it over my Gooner mates all week at school.

If there was ever a paragraph of words to epitomise how desperately shit the late 90s were, then that one will certainly do the job...

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One of the best keeping performances ive seen in a spurs shirt. Shame he didnt maintain it!