Lost in Ullevaal for the first time in four years

Erling Braut Haaland’s first goal for the national team was not enough.

Norway-Austria 1-2

ULLEVAAL STADIUM: Outside the national arena it was completely quiet. There was no indication that this year’s first international match was minutes away. Erling Braut Haaland appeared just in time near the post and led him past the goalkeeper.

Typically, thousands of expectant people showed up to watch the nation’s new shooting star score his first goal for the national team.

But there was no one here. Below If we love the red suits were at least a meter apart.

When the match started, it almost seemed that Lars Lagerbäck was in a hurry to leave the field.

Norway played so poorly for much of the match, and couldn’t finish with anything other than the first loss at Ullevaal under the Swede’s leadership.

The previous defeat came exactly four years ago, when Germany toured Norway and won 3-0. At that time, Per-Mathias Høgmo was still head of the national team.

– It was a disaster. I have to focus on myself and the team, above all on myself. Too many players have been on vacation and trained and haven’t played football for many weeks, so we were very rusty. We were better in the second half, but we gave them too much time. It was a good team that seeded balls with a good combination of play and a lot of good individual players, Joshua King tells TV 2.

Lagerbäck has talked a lot about “Fort Ullevaal”. Now he is defeated for the first time.

– It’s pretty easy to summarize. It was a Norwegian team that didn’t work for 60 minutes. It was passive and without interaction. It felt like we were scattered all over Norway. It is difficult to explain why this happened, the Swede said at the post-match press conference.

On October 8, Serbia is scheduled to come to Oslo for a fateful battle for a place in the European Championship next year. So Norway must perform significantly better.

Haaland’s first

Because it didn’t help that Haaland finally did in a red suit what he has done so many times on the international stage in the last year.

The first 66 minutes were played without him or any of his teammates having a proper opportunity. Substitute Alexander Sørloth had just arrived for Joshua King.

It was played to the left and accelerated. Trønderen made a good post. Haaland had run free in front of the goal. Jærbuen used the outside of his right foot to perfectly control the ball in the goal just off the post.

The problem for Haaland, Sørloth and Norway was that Austria was already leading 2-0.

– It was a nice ball from Sørloth, and it was good to score, but it is difficult to lose. We were bad at first, but we recovered in the second. There were margins against which meant we didn’t score the other one, and I won’t say anything about that hand. No, it’s hard to lose, Haaland told TV 2

– He is one of the dumbest I’ve seen, he elaborated after questions about punishment.

Sander Berge had a huge chance to equalize with less than ten minutes to go, but the 3-meter header went incredibly wide.

No combat training

This was the 16th match Lagerbäck led Norway in Ullevaal. The first 15 finished without defeat. One thing is that the home stats smoked. A bigger problem is that Norway may depend on this fall’s League of Nations to qualify for the 2022 World Cup.

The beginning couldn’t have been worse. On Monday, Northern Ireland waits in Belfast, Romania is also in the Norwegian group.

– Matches like this tend to act like a wake-up call, Lagerbäck said after the loss.

Austria had to do without their clearly biggest star, recent Champions League champion David Alaba.

Dresses in black were still the best from start to finish. Former national team profile Lars Bohinen asked on Twitter if there was power in the ball. He wasn’t the only one who wasn’t impressed by the Norwegian ball’s handling in the first place.

Nations League as a concept was created to remove international training matches from the calendar. However, the Norwegian team was characterized by the fact that most of the players are without training and out of season.

Jarstein with good stops

Austria was the best and, at 34 minutes, Norway fell behind. Morten Thorsby won the ball outside Norway’s goal area. However, he lost the next duel and fumbled the ball. The Sampdoria professional called for a free kick but the referee was not listening.

Andreas Ulmer’s post was good, and in front of goal Michael Gregoritsch had run free between the Norwegian blocks. He threw his foot forward and made it 1-0.

Eight minutes after the break, the pain worsened. The ball was returned to Sander Berge’s elbow from close range. The referee pointed to the penalty spot. Norwegian protests were also not heard this time, despite the penalty being very strict.

Rune Almenning Jarstein tried a shot, but from an awkward position, sending the ball to the visiting fans.

In the second half, there were only several good saves from Jarstein that prevented a major loss.