The Champions League may usually be won by big clubs, but every season, there’s at least one surprise team that advances deep into the knockout rounds. Last season, that team was Club Brugge, who upset Atalanta in the Knockout Playoffs to make it to the Round of 16. So far in 2025/26, it’s been Norwegian side Bodø/Glimt, which is on the precipice of the Round of 16 in its first Champions League appearance.
Bodø will bring a 3-1 lead back to Italy for this afternoon’s 3 p.m. ET (9 p.m. local) match after beating last season’s runner-up Inter Milan at home last Wednesday. Glimt is one of just three home teams who won the first leg across the eight playoff teams.
The Nerazzurri are -400 favorites to win (-125 to advance to the Round of 16) at DraftKings Sportsbook, and Bodø is +850 (+100 to advance). There are +600 odds that the teams will draw, which would send the Norwegians through.
Bodo Glimt vs. Inter Milan prediction, pick
It’s hard not to call this Glimt team real after its results in the last three matches: wins over Manchester City, Atletico Madrid, and Inter. Sure, a major part of Bodø’s success is its home-field advantage, since it plays on a turf pitch deep in the frigid Arctic Circle, but to beat Los Colchoneros on the road is no fluke. Plus, the home-field advantage can’t explain the full difference in the 3-1 win over the Nerazzurri, especially since Inter has been the strongest road team in Serie A. The Norwegian giants have no domestic football to distract them and are simply in peak form.
Glimt has a bevy of attacking talent that rivals even Inter’s. During this competition, it has managed to amass the 12th-most expected goals per match, more than even reigning Club World Cup winners Chelsea. Individually, Kasper Høgh ranks above even Lautaro Martínez, Viktor Gyökeres, and Serhou Guirassy in expected goals, and Sondre Fet and Jens Petter Hauge each chipped in with a goal in the first leg. Some regression to the mean should be expected for both clubs — Bodø got six of its eight shots on target and Inter just four of its 15 — but the fact that Glimt won despite completing its passes at a lower rate than usual suggests that its average chance quality could be even higher in the return leg. It might be due for some defensive regression, given that it had an 81.6% success rate on its tackles after being one of the worst all-around defenses during the League Phase, but its elite attack has built the cushion to withstand said regression.
The Nerazzurri will certainly be better this evening than they were in Norway. They had their third-least clinical shooting performance in the Champions League, were slightly less accurate than normal with their passes, and they didn’t win either their ground or aerial duels at quite the same rate as they did during the League Phase. Inter has the more talented side overall, with Marcus Thuram, Yann Sommer, Denzel Dumfries, and Alessandro Bastoni the standout names, but it’ll need a combination of talent and luck to overturn the two-goal deficit. It may need to press to get mistakes out of Bodø, but that’s never been Simone Inzaghi’s way. The Nerazzurri might also need to be even more patient than usual, given Glimt’s ability to pull the offsides trap, but that could neutralize Thuram’s strengths. Their chances took a big blow over the weekend when Martínez was diagnosed with a calf injury, which will likely hold him out this afternoon.
Common logic would dictate that Bodø should come out in a defensive formation and park the bus for 90 minutes, but given how sloppy the Norwegians have been in the back (goalkeeper Nikita Haikin aside), that probably wouldn’t be a winning strategy. Instead, I expect Glimt to come out swinging. It’s not like Inter is that great on the counter, and the Nerazzurri haven’t shown any ability to completely shut down the Norwegian side’s strong attack. Bodø’s aggression and the injuries to Martínez and Hakan Çalhanoğlu (quad) should result in Inter’s earliest exit since 2020/21.
