Season 2019-37 was the third season in a row in which Lokomotive Bryggen exceeded expectations by quite a bit. Bryggen found themselves in Top-3 more or less throughout the season, and when the smoke cleared, Bryggen was Division winners 7 points clear of Erzte FC Bayern in third place. German Head Coach Sepp Piontek is having bigger and bigger problems expressing his satisfaction: “Also, ich weisse not what to say. This team is not supposed to be that good at this point. Ich bin stoltz und exaltiert!”

Bryggen managed to go undefeated at Bryggen Arena and climbed the rankings at a fast pace. Bryggen finished the season as number 251 in the world, which marks a milestone in the clubs history. The 256 best teams in the world gets an invitation to the World Cup and for the first time ever, Lokomotive Bryggen is a part of that tournament. In the first round, Bryggen have drawn home field advantage against Forest Fire – the Italian champions 9 out the last 11 seasons. “Das is going to be a gigantic experience for our fans and our players”, Piontek, says. “Every game we get gegen weltklasse mannschaften, is making us stronger. It will be a day to remember at Bryggen Arena”.

Striker Marcus Graulund scored 14 times during season 2019-37, which puts him at 235 total goals during his 11 seasons at Lokomotive Bryggen. That is yet another milestone as he surpasses fellow Dane Manfred Randlev as the most scoring player in team history.

Bryggens financial statement again showed a result just north of 10M. According to Head Treasurer Enid Ford A’Kash, the club now has a balance of approximately 70M. When asked about if that money will go into buying stronger players, club owner Ai-Pwn Yu responded “Not really. We have no plans of getting rid of any of the current players who have served the club so well. We will continue replacing players around their 31st birthday and we will probably try to upgrade at the given position when that happens, but otherwise we will keep the current squad. The development of the club has been dramatically faster than we expected, and our training facilities are simply not up to standard anymore. In the coming season we will upgrade the facilities significantly. We expect to spend around 50M, which is a lot of money for a club our size, but the result will be professional facilities that we can use for many many seasons to come”.

When asked about the goal for the upcoming season in the Bundesliga, Piontek surprised most journalists with a rather optimistic statement: “Wir können nicht continue to exceed our expectations so much. Das ist nicht serious. So for the coming season we have set ourselves the goal of avoiding relegation! Was sagen ihr da zu? It is obviously an extremely optimistic goal and it is probably not gonna happened, aber dieser jungs have again and again shown that they can play with the best, so warum nicht?”

We wish Lokomotive Bryggen the best of luck in season 2019-38. We are very hard pressed finding four teams in the Bundesliga that Bryggen can finish ahead of, but we really like the big ambitions and are looking forward to the season.