The Norwegian football team lost to Spain at home in the European Championship qualifying series, so they can only hope that they can still participate in the additional qualifiers. The Scandinavian country’s team has only participated in the tournament once so far, in 2000, so we can safely say that there is nothing to see here, except that players like Erling Haaland and Martin Odegaard are now in the team, so the stumble is already quite noticeable.
At home, Norway was trying to absorb the final straw in their European Championship qualifying series, and Spain had to be defeated to still have a chance of clinching one of the top two places in Group A qualifying for automatic qualification. Senseless soulbaken However, his team gave a disappointing performance, and had only one minute in the match, and the Spaniards Javi They won on a goal scored early in the second half – awarded almost five minutes after VAR and contested by the Norwegians – and qualified for the European Championship in Germany, and They also took the Scots with them.
Norway may still have a chance to reach one of the qualifying places, but there is a lot of work to be done. In short, the bottom line is that sixteen of the 22 teams ahead of them in the League of Nations rankings – not counting hosts Germany – should also qualify for the European Championship from the group stage.
The national team captain, who prematurely ended his playing career due to a sudden cardiac arrest, worked with Solbakken in Germany at Cologne and in England at Wolverhampton, while coaching Copenhagen in more than 600 matches in two seasons. In addition to eight Danish league titles and four Danish Cup victories, he has repeatedly led the team to the group stage of the Champions League and Europa League.
So one can talk about a lucky group, but a disappointing series of results. Solbaken’s first serious test was the 2022 World Cup qualifying series, when both the Netherlands and Turkey took the lead over Norway – who had not managed a single win over the main rivals in the group – but the skipper was so confident, he said he was 99 per cent. He is sure his team will be there at the European Championships in Germany on His statement has become very old, as the only thing left for the Norwegians is to cheer for the remaining matches in order to at least reach the qualifiers.
And of course, the reflections of the Norwegian press about whether Solbakken is the right person for the position of captain of the national team. After the home defeat to the Spaniards, TV2 showed, for example, team captain Odegaard, as well as the national team defender, Leo Skerri Oostigardot They also asked him about this matter, and the latter was asked the question in question in three different ways one after the other.
We’ve never been better. It must bother people that I always fold this up and get lost again. But the team is already progressing step by step since this project started, I feel we are on the right track
– He evaluated Odegaard on Sunday evening, noting that the team members still have confidence in the captain, and even the Norwegian experts who criticize Solbakken agree that despite the lack of results, the national team is characterized by a team unity that has not been seen for a long time.
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If we looked for reasons why Norwegians often lag behind in major tournaments, it would be easy to conclude that winter sports are popular in the country of 5.5 million people, but that would be a rather cheap explanation, and it’s not even that. TRUE. On the one hand, many people love football, and on the other hand, since Norway’s last participation in the European Championship, countries with much smaller populations have also qualified (just mention Iceland, Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Herzegovina or Croatia, which have two World Cup medals in this period of time). . From the Nordic region, Denmark and Sweden are almost constant participants in world events, and in addition to the previously mentioned Icelandic example, Finland can also be mentioned, as they were there at the European Championship in 2021.
There was a golden era in the history of Norwegian football, when the national team participated in the World Cup in 1994 and 1998, and in the European Championship in 2000. They won matches in every tournament, and defeating the Brazilians in France not only earned them prestige, but also promotion, and then they bid farewell. Italy, the North team, in the round of 16. At that time, national team players were primarily professionals in England, and the country was at the forefront of sports analytics, which was successfully used on the football field. This momentum has not continued in this sport (unlike winter sports), as there is currently no national training center in Norway, which also eliminated the competitive advantage over others at the time. However, it is much more difficult to complete a successful qualifier, and even if the team sometimes reaches the alternative qualifiers, they have already been postponed – in 2015 against Hungary.
