Successful season for the Street Team of Vålerenga

Successful season for the Street Team of Vålerenga

Football coach Svein Helge Liknes summarizes the season for the Street team. A content-rich year with new records is descriptive when we summarize the year for Vålerenga Gatelag 2022.

Final football activity

Finally the team can play football as normal. Let’s start by expressing their joy over a more or less normal year, primarily characterized by football activity for their Street Team. After several years of pandemic, restrictions and buckets of alternative activity, it was nice for them to be able to play football as normal!

When they were able to start up again in the new year and offer football training, they experienced an enormous increase in the number of players in training. In January and February, they had well over 20 players training up to three days a week! Both new and old players found their way to Vallhall. From an average of just over 10 players throughout the pandemic, they have increased to an average of close to 14 players and had up to 120 unique players visit the Street Team during 2022. They have an active base of around 30-35 players who visit evenly. Four of their players have also been on work training at the foundation, and got into regular work during the year.

Record high figures since the start in 2014

When they first talk about numbers, they can also mention that they have had close to 80 football sessions, played 25 matches, delivered 200 drug-free hours weekly which amounts to over 10,000 hours in total through 2022! These are the highest figures Gatelaget has delivered since its inception in 2014.

The team also worked for just under 400 hours. The hard work contributed to the team traveling to Italy and Milan in October to watch the Champions League match between Inter and Victoria Plzen. Together with this year’s national tournament at Nadderud, this was the highlight of the year for many of the players.

This year’s national tournament at Nadderud

Stabæk was the organizer of this year’s national tournament for Gatelag. In August, all the street teams gathered under the auspices of the Football Foundation for the annual tournament, which is described as the highlight of the year for the vast majority of street team players. Here it was Notoddens who showed the best football skills and ran away with the victory. The Fair Play winner was also named through a new points system, where the team’s Fair Play performances throughout the match are rewarded with points. It ended with a shared victory for Ham Kam and Asker.

their sporting performances have varied, where they ended up with a table position in the middle of three. It has been an impeccable effort despite varying results. They are happy as participation in itself is the biggest victory.

Shared first place on the Fair Play table

When we first talk about achievements in the Østlandsligaen, it is worth mentioning that they delivered an outstanding performance in this year’s Fair Play table. A winner was chosen for the spring season and one for the autumn season. After finishing in the middle of the table in the spring, they shared first place with Sandefjord in this table in the autumn. They are very proud of that!

Thankful for a great season!

A long season is now coming to an end. 2022 is not only a record year for the Gatelaget til Vålerenga – the  Football Foundation  has also had fantastic results in the year which is now coming to an end. The Football Foundation’s Street Team, which consists of 29 Street Teams from Tromsø in the north to Start in the south, delivers a total of 5,500 drug-free hours every single week just with street team training around the country. In addition to this, there are matches, tournaments, trips and more. 

In total, the Football Foundation’s Street Team has had an amazing 1,171 players take part in training this year. Furthermore, 240 of them have taken the step into work, school and work training projects. 

We would like to thank the Football Foundation and the rest of the Gatelags family for a fantastic season! Vålerenga’s Street Team takes no breaks and keeps it going through Christmas.