How a fighter pilot's mental techniques helped tiny Bodø/Glimt reach the Europa League semifinals

How did an unheralded Norwegian team from a tiny town north of the Arctic Circle become one of the fairy-tale stories of European soccer?

For Bodø/Glimt, the transformation has been underpinned by a fighter pilot who developed mental techniques for his squadron before bombing missions in Libya.

Bjørn Mannsverk discovered a group of players exuding negative energy and prone to “a collective mental breakdown” when he was asked in early 2017 to join the backroom staff of a team that had just been relegated to Norway’s second tier.

His task as “mental coach” at Bodø/Glimt? To make players talk openly about their feelings, lower stress levels, change their attitudes and routines about things like preparation and nutrition, and remove the stigma around mental training.

Winning or losing no longer mattered. It was all about following a philosophy and culture established by Mannsverk, a former Royal Norwegian air force squadron leader whose military duties took him to Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks and to Libya for a NATO-led intervention in 2011.

The results have been extraordinary.

After securing an immediate return to Norway’s top division, the team — based more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) north of Oslo in a fishing town, Bodø, with a population of around 55,000 — has captured four of the country's last five league titles. It started in 2020 with a first in the history of a club founded in 1916.

Bodø/Glimt has also had some big results in Europe in recent seasons — a 6-1 thrashing of Jose Mourinho’s Roma in the Conference League 2021 stands out — and this year it has become the first Norwegian club to reach the semifinals of a major European competition.

The first leg against Tottenham in the Europa League takes place in London on Thursday. It’s Bodø/Glimt’s biggest ever match.

“It is a fairy tale, almost a miracle,” Mannsverk told The Associated Press in a video interview. “How can you actually come from (Norway's) second division in 2017 to playing a Champions League playoff and teams like Arsenal five years later?

“But I think it’s possible ... if you have the right mentality and you work hard over time.”

An active air force pilot for more than 20 years, Mannsverk and others in his squadron were the subjects of a mental training project in 2010 where the focus was on meditation and “every day repeating boring stuff, but with 100% attention.”

It meant that when he was in Libya the following year, he had the mental capacity to handle the dangerous missions he was asked to perform. His squadron’s mantra — “train as you intend to fight” — worked.

“Even though I got strong feelings when my first bombs hit the target and it was in infernal flames and fragments and everything," he said, "it was like, ’My training said that it’s OK, this is happening, recognize that, but know I have to return and do my job.'”

With Bodø until recently having a NATO air base, it was simply a happy coincidence that Bodø/Glimt’s leadership came across members of the squadron at the same time as it was seeking a “silver bullet” — as Mannsverk put it — to improve the team’s mental conditioning.

A project was born and fully embraced by manager Kjetil Knutsen following his appointment in 2018.

Bodø/Glimt has never looked back.

Mannsverk’s fingerprints are all over the team’s behavior, though he acknowledges there has been such a buy-in by the players that they now take decisions by themselves.

Like having a rotating cast of eight captains to share leadership duties. Like when the players gather into a circle — Mannsverk calls it the “Bodø/Glimt Ring” — after conceding a goal to discuss what happened and maintain solidarity. Like the players having no specific targets, apart from being the best version of themselves.

Inge Henning Andersen, Bodø/Glimt’s chairman, told the AP that midfielder Ulrik Saltnes considered retiring because he used to suffer from stress-related stomach issues that flared up around matches. Saltnes opened up about his problems to Mannsverk and “finally found a way out of it,” Andersen said.

The team plays at an intensity that far exceeds its rivals, which players attribute to Mannsverk.

“I don’t think it would be possible to play like that without Bjørn and the mental work we do,” Saltnes once told the BBC.

Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou has come up against Bodø/Glimt twice before, losing on both occasions when in charge of Celtic in the Conference League in 2022, and he gave a nod to his opponent’s mental fortitude when asked about its strengths.

“They have a real clear identity in the way they play,” the Australian coach said Wednesday. “I think they’ve created a real resilience in the group, a mental resilience that irrespective of who they play, whether that’s in the Norwegian league or the Champions League qualifiers or the Europa or Conference League, they treat every opponent the same.”

This season’s Europa League campaign is giving Bodø/Glimt widespread attention, notably for its location.

The team’s Aspmyra stadium — with a capacity of less than 9,000 — is one of the most northernly in world soccer at 67 degrees latitude. Tourists have long come to the town on the tip of Norway’s west coast because it is a good spot to see the northern lights.

Bodø, named the European Capital of Culture in 2024, has less than an hour of sunlight during its shortest days, meaning players take supplements to combat a lack of sunlight. It can be bitterly cold and windy in the long winters, making for tough trips for opponents from other countries.

On paper, Tottenham, one of the world’s richest clubs, starts as a huge favorite against Bodø/Glimt. The likely crowd of nearly 63,000 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for Thursday's match will be bigger than Bodø's population.

“You’d love us to think that — that you’re a small club and we don’t rate (you),” a smiling Postecoglou replied to a leading question from a Norwegian reporter at the pre-match news conference.

The English club is having one of its worst seasons in a generation and currently lies 16th in the 20-team Premier League. It gives Bodø/Glimt a realistic shot at an upset, like it produced when getting past Italian team Lazio in the quarterfinals.

It's another chance, then, for the club to write another amazing chapter in its remarkable journey.

“We like to tell our story,” Mannsverk said. “The philosophy is a good thing. We know it’s difficult in football, where there’s so much money involved, to give a coach or a team the time. And it takes time to change and drill in the mentality.

“This was not done overnight ... but I’m totally convinced that it will work more or less all over.”

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Players warm up before the first leg quarter-final soccer match of the UEFA Europa League between Bodø/Glimt and Lazio at Aspmyra Stadium in Bodø, Norway, Thursday, March 13, 2025. (Lise Åserud/NTB Scanpix via AP)

FILE - Glimt's Jens Petter Hauge, front, Olympiacos' Costinha, rear right, and Olympiacos' Gelson Martins, left, vie for the ball during the Europa League round of 16 second leg soccer match between Olympiacos FC and FK Bodo/Glimt at the Georgios Karaiskakis stadium at Athens' port of Piraeus, Greece, Thursday, March 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis, File)

FILE - Glimt's head coach Kjetil Knutsen follows an Europa League soccer match between Nice and Glimt at the Allianz Riviera stadium in Nice, southern France, Thursday, January. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani, File)

FILE - Twente's Naci Unuvar tackles Glimt's Isak Dybvik Maatta during the Europa League play-off match between Twente and Bodo Glimt in Enschede, Netherlands, Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong, File)

FILE - Glimt fans cheer before the Europe League quarter final second leg match between Lazio and Bodo Glimt in Rome, Italy, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)

FILE - Glimt's Andreas Helmersen celebrates after scoring during the Europe League quarter final second leg match between Lazio and Bodo Glimt in Rome, Italy, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)

FILE - Glimt's goalkeeper Nikita Haikin punches the ball during the Europe League quarter final second leg match between Lazio and Bodo Glimt in Rome, Italy, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)

FILE - Bodø/Glimt's Ulrik Saltnes, center, celebrates with teammates Jens Petter Hauge, left, and Patrick Berg after scoring his second goal of the game during the Europa League quarterfinal soccer match between Bodø/Glimt and Lazio at Aspmyra Stadium in Bodø, Norway, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (Lise Åserud/NTB via AP, File)

FILE - Bodo/Glimt players celebrate their qualification to the next phase after the end of the Europa League round of 16 second leg soccer match between Olympiacos FC and FK Bodo/Glimt at the Georgios Karaiskakis stadium at Athens' port of Piraeus, Greece, Thursday, March 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — Reviving a campaign pledge, President Donald Trump wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars but drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner.

Trump was not clear in his social media post Friday night whether a cap might take effect through executive action or legislation, though one Republican senator said he had spoken with the president and would work on a bill with his “full support.” Trump said he hoped it would be in place Jan. 20, one year after he took office.

Strong opposition is certain from Wall Street in addition to the credit card companies, which donated heavily to his 2024 campaign and have supported Trump's second-term agenda. Banks are making the argument that such a plan would most hurt poor people, at a time of economic concern, by curtailing or eliminating credit lines, driving them to high-cost alternatives like payday loans or pawnshops.

“We will no longer let the American Public be ripped off by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Researchers who studied Trump’s campaign pledge after it was first announced found that Americans would save roughly $100 billion in interest a year if credit card rates were capped at 10%. The same researchers found that while the credit card industry would take a major hit, it would still be profitable, although credit card rewards and other perks might be scaled back.

About 195 million people in the United States had credit cards in 2024 and were assessed $160 billion in interest charges, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says. Americans are now carrying more credit card debt than ever, to the tune of about $1.23 trillion, according to figures from the New York Federal Reserve for the third quarter last year.

Further, Americans are paying, on average, between 19.65% and 21.5% in interest on credit cards according to the Federal Reserve and other industry tracking sources. That has come down in the past year as the central bank lowered benchmark rates, but is near the highs since federal regulators started tracking credit card rates in the mid-1990s. That’s significantly higher than a decade ago, when the average credit card interest rate was roughly 12%.

The Republican administration has proved particularly friendly until now to the credit card industry.

Capital One got little resistance from the White House when it finalized its purchase and merger with Discover Financial in early 2025, a deal that created the nation’s largest credit card company. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is largely tasked with going after credit card companies for alleged wrongdoing, has been largely nonfunctional since Trump took office.

In a joint statement, the banking industry was opposed to Trump's proposal.

“If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives," the American Bankers Association and allied groups said.

Bank lobbyists have long argued that lowering interest rates on their credit card products would require the banks to lend less to high-risk borrowers. When Congress enacted a cap on the fee that stores pay large banks when customers use a debit card, banks responded by removing all rewards and perks from those cards. Debit card rewards only recently have trickled back into consumers' hands. For example, United Airlines now has a debit card that gives miles with purchases.

The U.S. already places interest rate caps on some financial products and for some demographics. The Military Lending Act makes it illegal to charge active-duty service members more than 36% for any financial product. The national regulator for credit unions has capped interest rates on credit union credit cards at 18%.

Credit card companies earn three streams of revenue from their products: fees charged to merchants, fees charged to customers and the interest charged on balances. The argument from some researchers and left-leaning policymakers is that the banks earn enough revenue from merchants to keep them profitable if interest rates were capped.

"A 10% credit card interest cap would save Americans $100 billion a year without causing massive account closures, as banks claim. That’s because the few large banks that dominate the credit card market are making absolutely massive profits on customers at all income levels," said Brian Shearer, director of competition and regulatory policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, who wrote the research on the industry's impact of Trump's proposal last year.

There are some historic examples that interest rate caps do cut off the less creditworthy to financial products because banks are not able to price risk correctly. Arkansas has a strictly enforced interest rate cap of 17% and evidence points to the poor and less creditworthy being cut out of consumer credit markets in the state. Shearer's research showed that an interest rate cap of 10% would likely result in banks lending less to those with credit scores below 600.

The White House did not respond to questions about how the president seeks to cap the rate or whether he has spoken with credit card companies about the idea.

Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who said he talked with Trump on Friday night, said the effort is meant to “lower costs for American families and to reign in greedy credit card companies who have been ripping off hardworking Americans for too long."

Legislation in both the House and the Senate would do what Trump is seeking.

Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., released a plan in February that would immediately cap interest rates at 10% for five years, hoping to use Trump’s campaign promise to build momentum for their measure.

Hours before Trump's post, Sanders said that the president, rather than working to cap interest rates, had taken steps to deregulate big banks that allowed them to charge much higher credit card fees.

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., have proposed similar legislation. Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent political target of Trump, while Luna is a close ally of the president.

Seung Min Kim reported from West Palm Beach, Fla.

President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport, Friday, Jan. 9, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

FILE - Visa and Mastercard credit cards are shown in Buffalo Grove, Ill., Feb. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)