Sten Grytebust

Early life

Born in Ålesund, he was raised on the adjacent island of Ellingsøy. His father is a native of Ellingsøy, his mother is Liberian, . He describes George Weah as his idol growing up. He did not originally play as a goalkeeper, but as a teenager he had to step in when the team's goalkeeper was injured and he delivered a solid performance which made him the preferred goalkeeper for their team. Grytebust was wanted by Aalesund in 2004, but the then 15-year-old chose to play for Ellingsøy IL's first-team in the Fourth Division, before he joined Aalesund's youth department one year later. Grytebust stayed at the youth department for two years, before he joined Aalesund's first team ahead of the 2008-season.

Club career

After joining Aalesund's first-team squad, the young Grytebust was the third-choice goalkeeper behind Adin Brown, Andreas Lie and later Anders Lindegaard. In August 2009, Lindegaard's loan-spell ended and he returned to Denmark, and Aalesund's coaching staff decided to give Grytebust a chance for the first team instead of Andreas Lie, after Grytebust's display at the training field. He made his debut against local rivals Molde on 22 August 2009, and delivered a good performance despite conceding three goals. After his debut, Aalesund signed Lindegaard permanently, and after the departure of Lie, Grytebust became the second-choice goalkeeper for the next season and played the two first rounds of the 2010 Norwegian Football Cup.

Grytebust was told by the club during autumn 2009 that he would get his chances for the first team, and that he would be the next first-choice goalkeeper at the club. After the 2010 season, Lindegaard was bought by Manchester United and Aalesund made the local lad Grytebust their new first-choice goalkeeper instead of buying a new goalkeeper. Lindegaard stated that he believed Grytebust was ready for the task, and was certain that Grytebust would become the national goalkeeper of Norway one day.

The 2011 season started poorly with Aalesund losing against Fredrikstad partly due to a bad goal kick by Grytebust, but after his match-winning saves against Viking and Stabæk, his head coach Kjetil Rekdal predicted Grytebust would be the next national team goalkeeper. He delivered a stable performance throughout the season and was rewarded by being selected to the Under-23 national team together with his teammate Peter Orry Larsen, despite neither of them knowing that such a team existed. His performance also received praise from national team goalkeeping coach Frode Grodås who stated that Grytebust was "without weaknesses". After ending the season with a victory in the 2011 Norwegian Football Cup Final, Grytebust was together with Daniel Arnefjord named "Aalesund player of the year" by the local paper, Sunnmørsposten.

In the pre-season ahead of the 2012 season, Grytebust was again man of the match in the friendly match against Shaktar Donetsk. This season continued with Grytebust unchallenged as goalkeeper with Aalesund. Results varied with many games in domestic league, cup and Europa League. He received negative focus when Aalesund was eliminated from the domestic cup in the fourth round against Sandefjord, with Grytebust being sloppy with a pass and having to concede a goal.

Later during a match against SK Brann, he was again careless with a goal-kick, which ended up with Rodolph Austin scoring in his last match with the Bergen team. In August the club reported that it had re-signed Andreas Lie as a back-up keeper, Lie himself stating that he has ambitions to "play for a permanent spot".

International career

Grytebust was first called up for the Norwegian national team in June 2013, and made his debut in the friendly match against Macedonia on 11 June 2013 when he replaced André Hansen a couple of minutes before full-time. He became the 150th player Egil "Drillo" Olsen used during his two spells as national team coach.

Career statistics

Club