The next few months will be fun for football fans. The qualifiers for the Africa Cup of Nations are being played, and national teams from across Europe play both in the Nations Cup and the qualifiers for the 2024 European Championship. Aside from this, though, there won’t be a shortage of European football to follow this winter. There are plenty of national leagues that continue playing throughout the summer months (in the Northern Hemisphere) with quite a few top teams to watch.
Bodø/Glimt (Eliteserien – Norway)
Eliteserien is the top-flight football league in Norway. All 16 teams competing throughout the season have a single goal: to finish in the top 3 spots that qualify for European competitions like the Champions League, the Europa League, and the Europa Conference League. This season, FK Bodø/Glimt has the best chance to proceed to the Champions League qualifiers.
Bodø/Glimt was founded more than a century ago. Its most recent results are the best, though: the team won Eliteserien twice so far, in 2020 and 2021, showing that the team has the potential to perform well in European competitions as well.
The club has mostly local players in its lineup, with just a couple of outsiders, including left winger Amahl Pellegrino and forward Faris Pemi Moumbagna. You can follow their matches on TV or through live streaming at the best betting sites South Africa has to offer.
Malmö (Allsvenskan – Sweden)
Malmö FF is perhaps the most successful team in the Allsvenskan, the Swedish top-flight football league. It has won the national cup 15 times, and the Swedish championship a record 22 times so far. At this point in the season, Malmö is in the lead but its lead is not big – second-placed Elfsborg is just two points behind, so interesting things may very well happen.
Malmö has participated in the Champions League (and its predecessors) 18 times in its history of over 110 years. It has a more international lineup than Glimt – aside from its local players, it has squad members from Denmark, Brazil, Ghana, and Mali.
KuPS (Veikkausliiga – Finland)
Kuopion Palloseura, or KuPS, has been founded 100 years ago, in 1923, in Kuopio, one of the most populated cities in Finland. It is not the most successful team in the Finnish national league, Veikkausliiga, but its results are respectable: it has won the championship 6 times and finished second 12 times.
At this point in the season, KuPS is in the lead, but only by a couple of points, so the end result is far from being settled.
Final words
As the winter months unfold, football fans have plenty of exciting matches to look forward to across various European leagues. While the focus remains on major international tournaments, such as the AFCON and EURO qualifiers, there are also national leagues that continue to captivate audiences during this period. Nordic teams offer football enthusiasts exciting matches and captivating storylines to follow – and to bet on.
