Hareide will order an EC ticket – gets a clear answer from Solbakken – NRK Sport – Sports news, results and broadcast schedule

– Now I will go home and immediately order tickets for the European Championships in Germany, says NRK expert Åge Hareide after admiring Norway 3-2 victory Against Sweden at Olival Stadium on Sunday evening.

– why are you doing that?

The security I see in the team, the control they have against Sweden, and they are a good team – DrIt gives me great faith in the future. And these are the players who just want to get better. Now Norway is likely to win this group and rise to the A-level in the National League. Then we get big evenings at Olival and such evenings here again, and she needs Norwegian football. Plus, we opened the back door and got a safety net in a playoff if we didn’t make it to the European Championship qualifiers, says Heyd.

Media work feature

When NRK tells national team manager Ståle Solbakken what Hareide said, the Norway coach should smile.

– One of the advantages of working in the media and not sitting here, says Solbakken with a smile from the podium at the press conference after the match.

However, he does not want to start looking for hotels in Germany completely yet.

“Thank you for the trust, but I don’t think any national coach, not even Åge when he sat here, has ever received that compliment,” says Solbakken.

Hared, who was himself a former manager of the national team, commented on the Sweden match on NRK Radio.

The 68-year-old admired Solbakken’s pupils.

Norway was the best tactician and Sweden didn’t discover anything about us while we did. They made mistakes time and time again because Norway were tactically good. Norway was also technically better with better skills than them, they were the best physically and had the strength throughout the match. Hared says they also have mental strength in the team now, and really come to believe this can go in the right direction.

– very well “Training”

Solbakken thinks it’s important to point out that matches could have ended quickly with numbers other than those that ended in Stockholm and Oslo.

– We must respect the fact that, during the two games, we had margins with us. But we were also the best team, he told NRK.

– How do you rate the chances of winning the group now?

– I don’t spend time on it. Now we can hope that the players will come back in the same condition, and that those who change club will get their playing time. We had too little playing time for too many players, especially in the back of the field. If they gain the confidence of the clubs as they are, we will be better equipped, says the national team manager.

He was surprised by making six changes to the team since the match against Slovenia on Thursday.

When asked by VG how he would rate his training efforts on Sunday, Solbakken smiled widely:

– this is very good “Training”. it was good for The match, and there were three very good substitutions during the match which gave us peace of mind. Sometimes it worked, and today it was very good, he says and laughs.

Perhaps he is well aware that there may have been heavy criticism of the many changes in team selection if the match had gone awry.

– Do you have something going on

Instead, it was a rare festive night at Ullevaal. Norway took a deserved win against a usually much better team.

Solbakken believes that positivity prevails in all phases now.

– I think you can see in this whole gang here that they love to play in the national team. They love representing Norway and trying to create some of the biggest moments again. We have the precondition for that, if we can build on what we’ve done now. We have a lot to do in many stages of the game, but we have something going on, Solbakken says.

It is not only from the Norwegian team that the national team receives praise after the June meeting. Swedish file Emil Forsberg praised Norway after the two close matches last week.

– Norway is a team in progress. They bring out good young players and bring out a team that is doing well now. I think Norway is developing into a good national team. You have to respect that, it’s cool. Unfortunately, they won two games against us, but I still think there are two very equal teams, Emil Forsberg told NRK.

– We have everything in our hands

National captain Martin Odegaard is now looking to finish the group match in September.

– We have everything in our hands and we are in good shape. We’ll see what happens in the second game, but things are looking good. We must not go. We must continue to be humble and work hard, then there will be two beautiful matches where we will play again,” Odegaard told NRK after the match on Sunday.

His mood was not improved by the fact that the “second match” between Slovenia and Serbia ended 2-2.

This means that Norway is the group winner if there are points against Slovenia in the next match and Serbia loses against Sweden. If Norway loses to Slovenia in the next match, and Serbia beats Sweden, it will hold to a draw in the last match against Serbia to ensure the group win.

In other words, she looks very bright in Norwegian eyes ahead of the two crucial matches.

If Norway wins the group, it will lead to promotion to A-level in the National League, which will save a match against the best countries of Europe in the next edition of the tournament to be held in 2024 and 2025.

But it would also give Norway an extra chance in qualifying in the spring of 2024 if the European Championship’s regular 2023 qualifiers fail.

But perhaps most important: a win in the group will likely ensure that Norway becomes the second seed in the draw for the European Championships in Frankfurt on October 9. The road to the European Championship will probably be much easier.

Ståle Solbakken will likely lie down with a smile around his mouth for the next few days.