When Albert Grønbæk sat in on his first press conference as a Danish national team player last autumn, he gave great cred to Bodø/Glimt. Ligue 1 club Rennes had seen what the Dane achieved in the yellow Glimt shirt, the transfer came last summer. This turned out to be a huge downer, the rental contract in the Premier League has also not given Grønbak the playing time he needs to get a call from the Danish national team coach.
Grønbæk made a mockery of Danish journalists, when he crashed into the national team and impressed directly from his debut in September 2024. Big play and scoring against Serbia, made the Danes ask themselves: “Where did Grønbæk come from?” The answer was Bodø/Glimt. Between 2022 and July 2024, the central midfielder went to school with Kjetil Knutsen and the Bodø/Glimt gang.
It started okay at Rennes, then came chaos and a change of coach, where the angry Jorge Sampaoli made sure that Grønbæk was pushed out into the cold. In January, there was a full rift between the Rennes management and Grønbæk, it was a loan to Southampton and the Premier League.
Here there has been 140 minutes of playing time at Grønbæk halfway into March. It was therefore not surprising that the former Bodø/Glimt star did not receive a phone call from national team coach Brian Riemer, when Denmark will face Portugal in the quarter-finals of the Nations League, 20.3.
The national team coach explains the situation:
-Players can switch wherever they want, I have no influence on that. That transfer hasn’t given him much playing time since January. Therefore, he is currently in a situation where he has played too little to contribute. I have been in dialogue with Albert and am sure that he has a great future in the Danish national team, but it requires that he gets the necessary playing time, says Brian Riemer according to Bold.
Completely hypothetical, but still: Had Albert Grønbæk taken a few more seasons at Bodø/Glimt, the Dane would have avoided the chaos at Rennes and sour conditions on the bench in the Premier League. With Bodø/Glimt, it would have been the best showcase in the Europa League with wins over FC Twente and Olympiakos and a natural ticket to the Danish national team in March.
The grass may also be greenest at Aspmyra.
