Now it can be brutal

ABOUT FOOTBALL: Martin Ødegaard’s verdict was honest and severe after attrition. Lars Lagerbäck knows that Norway is facing a harsh winter.

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ULLEVAAL STADIUM: “Ohhh,” Lars Lagerbäck groaned as he stepped off the podium a little too high. He had just summarized an intense week of selections in front of the press. The step that led down to the ground was a little too far.

Perhaps it was an appropriate summary of these days in October. The national team fever was going to ravage the homeland like a pandemic now. Instead, Football Norway appears to have developed a herd immunity to championships on the men’s side. If there’s a fever now, it’s just the body’s reaction in 90 icy minutes to Northern Ireland.

Because even though there were two wins in three games, one loss still overshadows everything else. You noticed it in Lagerbäck. He said it himself too. You feel it as soon as it reminds you of the European Championship opportunity you smoked against Serbia. “It was so sad,” said the Swede of the weaker performance.

The group winner in the Nations League is Norway with victories against Romania and Austria in November. Yet compared to what could be a decisive play-off final next month, it will be a bad consolation.

– Boring

The game against Northern Ireland showed what the great challenge of this team is.

– If we want to compete against really good teams and reach the championship, we have to climb a lot of steps, was the honest and severe verdict of Martin Ødegaard after the 1-0 victory. By then, the Real Madrid player had already called the game good and weak enough.

He and the rest of the team know that performance must stabilize at a much higher level for the dream of a championship to become a reality. Not least the dream of a World Cup, where only 13 European teams can escape. Then the lower level must be raised considerably. The performance was a narrow victory over the team that Norway beat 5-1 in September.

Now an own goal was needed to separate the teams. Ødegaard knows that many teams would have had little problems as the red suits played on Wednesday.

Erling Braut Haaland scored his first hat trick for Norway on Sunday. Three days later, the experience was not the same.

– Today was boring, said Jærbuen after the race against the Northern Irish.

Fights close like hail

“Boring” is also the fight program ahead. Lagerbäck says flatly that three games in seven days is not justifiable. The load is too great for the players.

Now, the November meeting also appears to have three parties. The Norwegian Football Association has an obligation to offer a certain number of television matches this year.

TV 2 writes that, therefore, Israel will come to Ullevaal on November 12. A meaningless training match was probably not what Lagerbäck wanted now. At worst, Norway’s chances for the World Cup are also drowned out by a packed match schedule.

Group victory in the Nations League power they proved to be absolutely necessary for an additional shot at the championship at Qatar Advent 2022. It’s hard to see how Lagerbäck will have time for normal practice before tough away games in Bucharest and Vienna.

Boring transport stage?

It’s not just in the fall that the match schedule is packed. This is also the case when the regular World Cup qualifier begins in March.

Once again, there will be three games in seven days. Only the winner of the group goes directly to the toilet. The runner-up has to play a very tough tiebreaker with only one in four teams getting a trip to Qatar. Norway will become the third seeded when the qualifying groups are chosen in December.

With a weak score in March, a month with which Norwegian national teams have a strained relationship, qualifying for the World Cup may actually end even before Easter.

– If we start badly, there is a long stretch of transport left. It can be very brutal, Lagerbäck said Wednesday.