Norway-England World Cup quarterfinal carries special meaning for both
· Yahoo Sports
MIAMI GARDENS — Everyone brings their personal experience to this World Cup. The obvious one, for the Norwegian players, is that if they beat England to reach the semifinals, they will have cleared an enormous hurdle for a nation that had never advanced this far, one that endured a 28-year absence from qualifying for the tournament in the first place.
Look closer, though. As Norway’s players line up to celebrate with their rendition of the “Viking row,” coach Stale Solbakken may not be anywhere in the frame, or even on the pitch. He might be climbing into the Hard Rock Stadium stands, as he has done in other stadiums, for a celebratory kiss with wife Anniken — the first hint of a deeper meaning each successive victory brings.
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Actually, each successive day is more accurate.
On March 13, 2001, while training as a midfielder for Copenhagen, Solbakken died, at least in a clinical sense. He suffered a heart attack, triggered by a heart defect he’d been born with. His heart stopped beating for seven minutes as the team doctor worked to save his life and teammates could only look on. The hospital placed him on a life-support machine, he didn’t regain consciousness for 26 hours and was fitted with a pacemaker.
Unsurprisingly, Solbakken, 58, says the incident forced him to view life from a different perspective, separating what’s important from what’s not.
“Yes, I had an incident 25 years ago, that’s right,” he said at a news conference July 10, a day before the England match. “But I’ve been able to live with that.”
Just as quickly, he attempted to shift attention back to the match, adding, “I think the whole nation has lived a good life in the last three weeks.”
That it has.
Erling Haaland, Norway ready to take on favored England
Behind the fearsome figure of Erling Haaland, Norway’s irrepressible 6-foot-5 striker/social media star, a country of about 5.65 million is about to take on the country that invented the sport, one whose capital city alone has nearly double the number of citizens. Haaland’s way of kissing it off is to say Norway has “really low” chance of winning and goading journalists into piling more pressure on the Brits to come up with the goods.
Solbakken is quick to mention that his players don’t exactly get off scot-free as it breaks new ground with each win.
“Every game in the World Cup has been ‘the most important,’ the ‘greatest’ for the Norwegians,” he said. “So it’s the third ‘most important’ game. I feel the players are in a relaxed but competitive mood, looking forward to the match. But of course they feel pressure. It’s a good mix.”
It’s all immaterial, Solbakken added, once the whistle blows. Players cease to sweat such things and it becomes 11 vs. 11.
That’s true, but it’s also 1 versus 1, if those singular players are Haaland and counterpart Harry Kane, who are locked in a four-way battle for the Golden Boot as the World Cup’s top scorer. France’s Kylian Mbappe leads with eight goals in six matches, at least one more match than the other contenders have played. Argentina’s Lionel Messi also has eight goals, followed by Haaland (seven) and Kane (six).
Good luck separating the two snipers. Haaland has 62 goals in 54 appearances in a Norwegian shirt. Kane is England’s all-time leading scorer in World Cups with 14.
“I think it’s Norway versus England,” Solbakken said, correcting a reporter who suggested it’s Haaland vs. Kane. “But I don’t think it’s a secret that Kane is the match-winner No. 1 for England and Haaland is match-winner No. 1 for us.”
Although this is the teams’ first World Cup meeting, it’s their 13th all time, with Norway seeking only its third win over the British. England is 7-2-3 against Norway with a massive 28-7 advantage in goals. Their most recent meeting resulted in a 1-0 England win at Wembley Stadium, but that was a dozen years ago in a friendly.
For England, the quarterfinal represents another potential step toward assuring “football is coming home,” as supporters like to say.
For Norway, it’s a chance to realize what had been all but unthinkable a few weeks ago.
“Well, it was silly because if you haven’t been in a World Cup for 28 years, it would be really strange to take it for granted,” Solbakken said. “It’s not easy to play at this top, world level, so it was nonsense at the time.”
Today, it makes all the sense in the world.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Norway-England World Cup quarterfinal carries special meaning for both