Soccer : Norway : Tippeligaen : Season 2008/2009

The top division of football in Norway, is the Norwegian Premier League. Its official Norwegian name is Tippeligaen. It is also colloquially known as Eliteserien ("The Elite League"), although the name has never been official.

There are 16 clubs in the Norwegian Premier League, half of which are placed in or near the Oslofjord area. The Norwegian league is destinguished for having two teams north of the Arctic Circle: Tromsø and Bodø/Glimt. During the course of a season, each club plays the others twice, home and away, for a total of 26 games for each club, and a total of 182 games in a season. The season starts in early April and lasts until early November. Rounds played during the weekends are broken up into one game on Saturdays, five games on Sundays and one game on Mondays. Midweek rounds are broken up into six games on Wednesdays and one game on Thursdays. For the final two rounds, all games start simultaneously so that no club may gain an unfair advantage by knowing the results of other games in advance of kicking off their own.

The winners of the Norwegian Premier League enter the second qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League, while the second and third placed teams enter the first qualifying round of the UEFA Cup. The fourth placed team may also qualify, depending on what happens in the Norwegian Cup. Normally the winners of the Cup receive the final spot (entering the UEFA Cup in the first round proper). If the winners have already qualified for Europe, the spot is transferred to the fourth placed team. Incidentally, the cup competition is The Championship, while the winners of the League are merely that - League Winners...