Somewhere, in a dark room, Erling Haaland was watching. The injury meant he would not be able to take the field for Norway’s most important match in 20 years. The return of the Netherlands to a partial lockdown last weekend meant the Netherlands, with games to be played behind closed doors, would not even be able to support their national team from the stands.
Instead, Haland was driven away, powerless to help. Two minutes after the game, he posted a photo of the television broadcast of the game on Instagram, accompanied by a Norwegian flag and a heart emoji. Even then there was a ray of hope left. Norway needed to beat the Netherlands in Rotterdam to have a chance to automatically qualify for their first World Cup since 1998 and their first major tournament since 2000.
Had Turkey – the other contender in the group – lost their final game against Montenegro, a tie would have been enough to keep Norway alive, at least for the time being: a second-place finish would have earned the Norwegian Europe’s best Qatar. In. A place in the playoffs for three final berths. These matches will be played in March. Holland would have been fit by then, and a fit Holland would have changed everything.
It won’t matter now. Turkey won after an opening goal in Podgorica, with Norway left with no choice but to gamble, win, keep hoping. Instead, its team seemed stagnant, falling to a limp after beating Toothless 2–0. “He only had half a chance,” said Dutch coach Louis van Gaal.
Given the circumstances, this was no surprise. “They have a great team spirit,” Netherlands captain Virgil van Dijk said of Norway. “They never give up.” But, he added, “they have a great striker, which they naturally missed.” That brilliant striker was condemned to watch from home. He didn’t post again. His fodder, like his room, had darkened.
Haaland will not be present in Qatar next year is, from a neutral point of view, a source of regret. He is already one of the most destructive strikers in the world, scoring 70 goals in 69 games since joining Borussia Dortmund in January 2020, scoring only 13 goals in 10 this season before sustaining a hip injury . are – until next year – expected to sideline them in October.
Following the Lionel-Messi-and-Cristiano-Ronaldo generation, along with Kylian Mbappe, the 21-year-old Haaland is already seen as the standard bearer for football’s first generation. By the time the World Cup starts next November, he could also be one of the most expensive players in the world.
After failing to sign Harry Kane last summer, Manchester City’s CEO, Khaldoon al-Mubarak, directed the club’s recruiting department to acquire Haaland – whose father, Alfie, appears as a beloved, helpless underdog. appear in. He played for City in his previous incarnation – its primary focus. It would cost somewhere in the north $150 million to get him out of Dortmund.
Borussia Dortmund’s Erling Braut Haaland celebrates scoring his third goal with teammates (Source: Reuters)
Now that it is one of the most prestigious players in the world, this did not mean that Norway started qualifying for Qatar with any high hopes; In fact, many in the country were uncomfortable with the prospect of legalizing the tournament as playing in it was embroiled in controversies.
Furthermore, Norway does not feel that it has any deep right to make it to the final. Apart from that brief, bright window of hope in 1998 and 2000, and a group-stage exit in the United States in 1994, it qualified for only one other major tournament: the 1938 World Cup, where it won one game. had won. Played, lost and immediately went home.
It is the kind of record that prompted the country’s renowned novelist and autobiographer Karl Ove Knausgaard to describe the team’s history as a series of games “lost in the rain in Eastern Europe”.
“The match didn’t last an hour and a half,” he wrote. “They used to play five, six hours at a time, almost like cricket.”
Norway, which made it to France in 1998 and the Netherlands and Belgium for the European Championships two years later, was the exception, not the rule. When success faded, and mediocrity was established, Knojgaard found it comforting. He wrote, ‘It seemed that childhood has returned, the world has returned to its normal form again. “The assurance was like a brown cardigan all around me and a pair of brown felt slippers.”
There is no doubt that the slowdown was related to the dwindling number of Norwegians playing in elite European leagues, particularly the Premier League. For much of the 1990s, most English teams had some form of Norwegian influence: 23 Norwegian players were registered in 1997 at top-flight English clubs, playing in the World Cup at the end of that season. This was the core of the squad. ,
Norway’s Erling Braut Haaland celebrates scoring his fifth goal and completing his hat-trick. (Haakon Mosvold Larsen/NTB via Reuters)As of 2014, that group was at the bottom: Brede was Norway’s lone representative in the Hungarian Premier League. (“Norwegian players in the big international clubs disappeared,” wrote Nussgaard. “Again, being a professional in Twente or Heerenveen or Nottingham or Fulham became great, and for an old man like me, it felt safe.” ) England Norway has always been the primary export market; Now, English clubs in France, Spain, Argentina and Brazil were habitually buying, and Norway suffered.
This, gradually, has begun to change, and Norway’s horizons have broadened as a result. Haaland is not the only representative of the country’s new generation: he is linked to Arsenal playwright Martin Odegaard; Sandor Burge, Sheffield United’s well-known midfielder; and Alexander Sorloth, a huge forward at Spanish league leader Real Sociedad.
This time, Haaland could see nothing, as Norway had fallen into the final hurdle, unable to cope with his absence. He and the rest of his teammates, the rest of his country, will have to do the same in about a year, as the World Cup begins without one of the game’s central figures. However, it seems as though the exile is coming to an end. Norway believes its time is coming again. Sooner or later Haland will lead his country from darkness to light.