Erna Solberg Norway World Cup qualifier football
TO in the end, it was Erling Braut Haaland’s injury that ruined the World Cup qualifier for Norway. The points losses against Turkey and Latvia without the world star, gave us a to difficult starting point for this final match against the Netherlands:
- At least with another injury due from Haaland.
Equal maturity belongs to the sport. A team that can not do without no single star, is also not good enough.
Against this background, another spoiled qualifier is little to whine about. But the superscorer’s long break could not have come at a worse time for a Norwegian national team in clear development.
Norway has not been closer to success in a qualifier for a long time.
THIS nice, underlying progress was possible to see also in an away game where Norway almost never managed anything other than to defend, Admittedly this was a tactical match where both teams adjusted the offensive game by result, but Ståle Solbakken’s selected defended well anyway . until the gambling started in the final minutes.
It is only a few months since Norway apparently lacked good enough players to put together a stable defensive line. Stefan Strandberg’s good comeback on and off the field combined with the young sidebacks’ development, has solved this big problem.
At the same time, the defensive help at the back of the middle has improved, while Martin Ødegaard’s driving pressure lifts the national team’s defensive level. The low number of setbacks this autumn played this progress.
Takes strong settlement
HER Ståle Solbakken has acquired a foundation to take the next step. With an increasingly ball-safe team, Norway can now also lead the matches more easily.
Exactly that step was almost invisible yesterday against the Netherlands. The home team was so clearly better that there were a few minutes with the Norwegian press early in the second half.
But at the same time this match picture would have been quite different with Erling Braut Haaland on the field. When he is back at the top, Norway has a unique attacking weapon that will lift the whole team to a new level.
That is how we saw it in the home game in September against the same Dutch team.
– Some cry, some are pissed
THEREFORE Dutch coach Louis Van Gaal’s reviewer’s weak attacking play yesterday linked directly to the absence of Haaland:
- Norway with and without world-class striker, are two different teams. Most football nations had been too.
That this fairly young national team has nevertheless had a couple of good matches in the same period, tells again about Norwegian progress.
RENT sportingly, there is therefore little reason to be depressed after this World Cup qualifier. After a bumpy start with an important home game added to Spain due to the pandemic, Ståle Solbakken has managed to create optimism around his project.
It has happened while this new national team coach is the front figure for another has been thinking about the values of top football:
- No one has shown more clearly than him what it means to make sport credible to most of us.
The football boys’ clear political markings about the world championship they have just lost have in a short time made this important both for us and in the world.
It is well done by a still fairly mediocre national team. And it has happened while Norway has been developing well in terms of sports.
– Sad
NO such change of top sport rarely happens unnoticed. Before the Latvia match at Ullevaal the other day ba the sane ex-prime minister Erna Solberg surprisingly the Norwegian football people parted sports and their political commitment to improve human rights at World Cup organizer Qatar:
– I think it’s time to put that debate aside and rather spend time cheering on the boysshe said VG as if there is any contradiction between a dream of Norway in the World Cup and disgust for the regime in Qatar.
Erna Solberg also stated that the Norwegian players had been both correct and important:
– I’m proud of our national team, so she, and for good reason.
But just that pride is value-wise closely linked to the fact that this is a national football team like never has put aside the difficult boycott debate.
That is, they have done the exact opposite of what ex-Prime Minister Solberg recommended.
Was let down by Norway
THEREFORE regardless of this loss, the football boys will be left as winners in a match where Erna Solberg had taken the defeat in advance:
– We are probably all alone in saying that they should never have chosen Qatar. But it has now been done and we are five to twelve. And then we should concentrate on looking at the sporting and cheering on the team, she urged last Saturday.
It is now past twelve, and Norway has been knocked out by another international football qualifier. It will be at least 24 years since the last A national team for men participated in a championship. But this time we will at best mark the World Cup more than we have ever done before.
Because Ståle Solbakken’s crew never distinguished between football and the opportunity to use their sporting platform to work for human rights.
World Cup dream shattered: – Not close
LET go that there is a small opportunity. The latest Amnesty reports from Qatar are discouraginge. The legislative changes that were to curb the slave-like system with an extremely extensive imported labor force do not work. In just over a year, the opportunity to use the World Cup to change the rights of foreign workers in this brutal class-divided society will be closed. But it has been our opportunity.
When the national team started its actions in March, it attracted international attention. The football guys did not stop there. They have been consistent in their markings. Therefore, Norway is now cited as an example to follow for the teams that join the World Cup finals:
– We will use the time to gather knowledge. Whether there are challenges we can highlight or help with, we have always tried to do just that, so England coach Gareth Southgate after the team’s last qualifier on Monday night.
Norway is worse
JUST his team was central in the markings against racism during this summer’s European Championships. Those actions were a breakthrough for a clear social position on the football field, and led to the heads of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) a few weeks later opening up for kneeling during competition in the Tolyo Olympics.
Her Norwegian sport ended up headless on the wrong side. The top management and the athletes’ committee in Norwegian sports fought against these markings, but has later been voted down by the sports democracy.
At the extraordinary sports council a month ago, it was decided that Norwegian athletes will henceforth free will be allowed to mark which social policy position they also want in the international arenas.
NEXT the chance will be the winter olympics in china. Ironically, these are the toys that Erna Solberg pushed for Norwegian sports a few years ago to correct the broken relationship with the superpower. Since then, developments for human rights in China have taken an even gloomier turn.
This is something to talk about freely for conscious top athletes. That is exactly what the football boys have just shown.
And won much more for Norwegian sports than a lost qualifier for a scandalous world championship.
Give China an Olympic slap