{"id":1053813,"date":"2026-06-27T16:26:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T16:26:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1053813\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T16:26:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T16:26:23","slug":"france-supplies-the-spectacle-against-norway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1053813\/","title":{"rendered":"France Supplies the Spectacle Against Norway"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shortly before the start of the France versus Norway group-stage World Cup match at Boston Stadium, word began to circulate that Erling Haaland<\/a>, the hulking, long-locked Norwegian striker\u2014a man who codes less as \u201cprofessional soccer player\u201d than as \u201cbringer of vengeance and destruction\u201d\u2014would be sitting on the bench, along with nine other regular starters. Given the stakes of the match (the winner would take the top spot in Group I, insuring an easier path to the final), the moves made by Norway\u2019s manager, St\u00e5le Solbakken, came as a surprise. They also came as a disappointment to most of the sixty thousand people in the stands, who\u2019d paid ransom sums for tickets to see Haaland clash with France\u2019s Kylian Mbapp\u00e9, in the early rounds\u2019 most prominent matchup on paper.<\/p>\n

But Solbakken defended the decision not to play his best as a \u201cno-brainer.\u201d The team was on a tight turnaround after a tough win over Senegal in hot, humid weather. Norway has a population roughly the size of South Carolina\u2019s; the team needs its few stars to be in peak condition if it hopes to go far. He\u2019d also apparently determined that the path awaiting the winner of Group I was hardly less treacherous than the runner-up\u2019s. Solbakken wasn\u2019t the first manager to look past his team\u2019s third match with an eye on the knockout rounds. (The previous night, after the U.S. men\u2019s team had already won its group, the U.S.M.N.T.\u2019s manager, Mauricio Pochettino, changed out nine players for a match against T\u00fcrkiye, which the U.S. lost.) \u201cWe have to be smart rather than greedy,\u201d Solbakken said before the game.<\/p>\n

And so, without Haaland in front to bash the ball into the goal, or Martin \u00d8degaard, fresh from captaining his club team, Arsenal, to a Premier League title, taking on France would have to be a full-team effort. During warmups, while the French players lazily passed the ball between one another or popped it off the ground to gently juggle with their feet, the Norwegians, their red shirts bright against the grass, formed a tight circle and did vigorous plyometrics. In the stands, Norwegian fans in Viking caps pulled in synchrony as if rowing on an invisible longship.<\/p>\n

Twenty seconds into the match, though\u2014around the time that Mbapp\u00e9, sprung loose on the right side by a nifty pass, hammered the ball into the inside of the crossbar, as near a miss as a miss can be\u2014I had a hard time believing that any squad at full strength would have been able to stand up to a French team in full flight. Norway promised to be stiffer competition than France had faced so far, but they weren\u2019t\u2014well, they weren\u2019t France: champions in 2018, runners-up in 2022, one of the deepest and most astonishing collections of offensive talent the world has yet seen. This was Norway\u2019s first World Cup since 1998. \u201cThey\u2019re probably going to win against us,\u201d Haaland told Fox after the Senegal game, when asked about the prospect of playing France. \u201cThey\u2019re probably going to win the whole tournament.\u201d That might have been tongue-in-cheek. For at least the first half on Friday afternoon, though, it looked true.<\/p>\n

About four minutes into the match, Manu Kon\u00e9\u2014curiously alone at the top of Norway\u2019s box\u2014trapped a clearance attempt and rifled a shot on goal, which Norway\u2019s keeper, Egil Selvik, diving, punched away. Then, all of seven minutes into the game, Mbapp\u00e9 sent a pass to Ousmane Demb\u00e9l\u00e9, who dribbled, feinted, put the ball on his right foot, and scored. That was just the start for Demb\u00e9l\u00e9. A few minutes later, Mbapp\u00e9 stoically held the ball under pressure and then found Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 on a fast break, who fired another hard shot\u2014this time with his left foot\u2014into the goal\u2019s corner.<\/p>\n

Rowing together? Never mind. Norway, up to that point, was, for better and worse, Selvik\u2019s one-man show. But I was still admiring the replay of Demb\u00e9l\u00e9\u2019s second goal on the jumbotron when a burst of cheers from the undaunted Norwegian fans shook me out of my admiration: Norway had just scored. Perhaps France had been too busy watching the replay, too, to notice Norway furiously flying up the field on the break. Hardly ten more minutes had passed before Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 scored again\u2014this time, cutting inside and stuttering his dribble and then, having befuddled the defense, rolling the ball right past it into an open corner of the goal. It was one of the quickest hat tricks you\u2019ll ever see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shortly before the start of the France versus Norway group-stage World Cup match at Boston Stadium, word began…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1053814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2000,299,1512,36,1115,10031,169070,93214],"class_list":["post-1053813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-france","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-fifa","tag-france","tag-norway","tag-soccer","tag-the-world-cup","tag-world-cup-2026"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1053813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1053814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1053813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1053813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1053813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}