Norway had several chances of qualifying for the Euros but they never lived up to their expectations. Haaland is the best striker in the world and Odegaard is a top midfielder and captain, for both the national team and one of the best teams in the Premier League. Norway is still managing to feed Haaland, with an insane 27 goals. What gives, terrible tactics or synergy issues?
Football is still a team sport. Sad for Haaland, because he will never be succesful with his country, but i’m glad it is this way.
It’s almost like you need 11
I know right! It’s almost like there’s nine other crap players around them!
Ødegaard hasn’t really been one of the “best players in the world” since February. And Haaland isn’t a creator, he’s a scorer. If no one creates for him, he can’t score.
Combine that with a error prone defence, and you’re knocked out.
They got Clarkeballed
One of those best players in the world is really a pure striker who is as good as his team.
Make no mistakes, he’s brilliant… but he depends on his team
Ask yourself why Messi couldn’t win 5 World Cups in a row. Some of those national teams were objectively bad.
George Best never played in a major tournament despite being one of the all time greats. Unfortunately you need a team of 11 not 2
Kick out Israel and give Norway their spot
Norway are trash to be honest
French here with a Norwegian gf so I’ve watched a bunch of Norway’s games. And everytime I watch them play I see a couple of key things going wrong.
1 - the squad seems very inconsistent. Yeah you have a few elite players but others really are subpar. I find that very visible in defense where they often seem to lack composure, but also in the buildup where you’ll have players like Odegaard who will generally improve every ball they get (one touch pass if possible to build momentum, pass back if heavy pressure, move forward if there is space…) but that can be completely undone by players who seem to not have that high a football IQ at all (dont know what to do with the ball? pass back to a literally worse position even if you’re under 0 pressure. or the opposite where there is heavy pressure but a player will suddenly believe they’re Ronaldinho and lose a ball in a dangerous position)
2 - lack of strategy / coaching. Maybe its unfair to compare Norway to France so instead I’ll compare them to my home club, Lens. Now Lens doesn’t have elite players, but when you watch them play there is usually a clear idea. We recently beat Arsenal in the UCL, punching way above our weight, and while that was probably a bit of luck it’s also because we had a strategy that gave us that chance (accepting they’ll put us under heavy pressure close to our own goal, try to get out of it through passes or pace and counter attack fast and in numbers when it happens). And it worked a couple times. Norway often seems to not have a plan and not know what to do in game.
3- lack of a killer instinct. While those first 2 could be fixed with a better coach, this one I think is more due to lack of experience. And what I mean by that is they drop points stupidly. In that caase they were in a group with 2 spots to take, and Spain and Scotland in it. So you know, not the easiest. And then they would draw against Georgia (!!!) in a game where they were far better but didn’t seem unhappy with 1 point (there was no urgency to get the win in the late game). Thn they would be beating Scotland convincingly but let their guards down in the last few minutes and give them the win. Etc etc…
In my opinion, they need a better coach urgently (been saying that since the very first time I watched them play) - better coaching would address most of these issues.
Also wanna point out that my gf literally has 0 hope about the NT accomplishing anything. Which makes me wonder if there isn’t also these types of feelings in the team where they’ve always underperformed and it makes it a vicious cycle (you know, the opposite of UCL Real Madrid where they have such confidence they’ll manage to come back from the craziest scenarios)
No team is going to be successfully carried by just 2 players, no matter how good they are.
Gareth Bale got Wales to the semi finals of the Euros and qualified for a World Cup.
International football is not club football, great players can carry terrible teams and managers very far.
Haaland & Odegaard bottled it 🤷♀️
Haaland is a different kind of player. He doesn’t create much himself, he just scores most chances he is given. Put him in a shit team and he is shit too.
Bale is much more a creator. Give him the ball and something will happen.
Yep and that isn’t a slight on Haaland either. You need those players that rely on the creativity of others. Someone who converts the majority of their chances is massively important for a team. As a Chelsea fan I appreciate that a lot because it’s the one thing that’s been holding us back recently. Lewandowski was the same. Unbelievable at club level where his job was to convert the chances the team created for him, more underwhelming at international level because he didn’t have the quality around him to shine. You just have to remind yourself of what a realistic expectation is for those mind of players.
Taking Bale, Haaland, and Odegaard out of the conversation, that Wales team had better players than this Norway team.
I don’t think that’s fair. If you’re taking Odegard out of the conversation, you have take Ramsey out too. That said, Wales still had a better team. Joe Allen was better than Norway’s third best player. Williams and Hennessey were also good players. Norway really doesn’t have the depth of quality that Wales had 10 years ago.
Norway’s third best player is Ostigard, who starts for the Serie A holders Napoli
I heard an expert talking about this. According to him in soccer it is not enough to have the best player, it is more important to not have the worst. In international football every team knows the strength and weaknesses of the other teams, and they are sure as h*ck going to attack that weak spot.
Yes, Norway have Haaland and Ødegaard but we don’t have many decent defensive players. And that is why we lose again and again.
Are they destined to b in that category of world class players who will never make a major International tournament because of the deficiencies of the rest of the team, I hope not but like Ryan Giggs before them and George Best before him it is a possibility 🤯