Why Is Norway's 'Golden Generation' So Bad? 

Because of an insufficient manager and an incompetent FA who refuses to fire him, presumably because he's a former national team player. Such a shame Norway are missing another major tournament.

Pretty spot on. It's quite absurd that as a Norwegian, you just know that whenever there is a game we "HAVE to win", we are 100% guaranteed to lose. And it's been like that forever. We simply can't handle pressure.

I'm from Norway and this is just painful to watch. My main takeaway is that Solbakken as a manager has been terrible

It’s crazy to imagine that Luxembourg on a group with Portugal and Slovakia made 17 points and has a chance to go to the Euros through the playoffs while Norway only made 11 points and wont even go to the playoffs

There is a lot of focus on Haaland and Ødegaard but the biggest weakness for the Norwegian national team is the defensive players who are too weak, during the last qualification they conceded 12 goals from behind.

Even their women's team which has been considered one of the strongest teams in women's game are on their way downfall. From winning world cup and olympic gold medal to loss against Portugal and other disappointing results, including a tie vs Zambia. I blame the federation for this recent stagnation.

As a Scotland fan the game i remember is beating Norway 2-1 in Norway. I thought we had lost that game but the Scotland players have bought into how Steve Clake wants them to play. When we beat Spain i think Spain thought they could just turn up and win. We don't have any superstars in the Scotland team but we have a great team spirt and a great manager. I hope Norway get there team sort. I always look to see how our Northern neighbours are doing. You have teams like Bodo Glimt that seem to have a good manager and team set up.

Paraguay's NT is on a similar situation right now, we now have one of our best sets of players in years (in terms of individual quality), but that hasn't been able to translate to a team level with various managers at the helm. Even a 40 year old Óscar Cardozo managed to be the standout player last night against Colombia (he was called up again due to his form at Libertad), when he only played around 10 minutes.

Steve Clarke respect! Yes I know we're not the subject of the video but there's far too little discussion of what a great job he's done. We've got no strikers and only one vaguely decent goalie (who's currently injured), but he's managed to get midfielders to pile in goals and to set up a superb defence despite limited personnel.

Norwegian here and you are correct. Our federation is indeed low-minded and failed to facilitate necessary reforms. We have a lot of talented players but we somehow always flopped at the final moments because of Solbakken's inadequate selection choices. To say however, you can also talk about Thailand's football struggle since it is ridiculously similar to Norway. Thailand used to boast two golden generations, the first in late 1990s to 2000s, and the current one, that saw Thailand reaching the final round of Asian WCQ twice and Thailand is also greatly benefited by having one of the best football leagues in Asia with so many wealthy clubs that can offer to overpay salaries. Yet for all respect the Thais also flop a lot, never won a single match in the final round and, currently, Thailand's chance to reach the 2026 World Cup is now in limbo after suffering a devastating 2-1 defeat at home to China, an opponent Thailand must win since South Korea is too much for the Thais.

Just look at Hungary's example. Take a manager from outside the country with a clear tactical vision and give him time to build th national team around it. The Hungarian national team is in value way under Norway's but the results for ex. the unbeaten year speaks for itself.

Every time us Swedes fail to quaify for a tournament, it's at least a little comforting knowing that Norway is right there below us.

Just a note on Håland being injured in the most recent international break, he did come on in the second half against the Faroe Islands, and that's where he injured himself. He went lunging for a finish and twisted his leg, and was visibly in pain, but played out the rest of the game.

As a norwegian following our national team closely, I am very impressed how incredibly well you hit the nail on the head in this video! All the important aspects and details covered and with very similar conclusion and possible solution to the problem as my own. Even a very interesting new take I hadn't thought about how Solbakken is really not suited as a manager because og him being more used to coaching Copenhagen dominating the danish league, while we really need someone that can make us perform against tougher opposition. I also think Solskjær would be a better option for this reason, despite him not really being a great manager either. Only nitpick I have on this video is the stuff about Haaland being so harshly judged by norwegians. The "jantelov" is for sure still present in the nordic countries among many, but most love Haaland. He is seen as a pretty grounded typical norwegian despite his somewhat flamboyant personality. If you go to his hometown on the west coast, you will find huge wallpaintings of him as well.

Hey Alfie, I’ve been watching your vids for a while. Would you be able to look into the Nigerian national team because they’re going through something similar. With the players that they have, many people would think that they have a golden generation coming up but recent results haven’t been good. So far in qualifiers for the 2026 WC they drew their first 2 games against Lesotho and Zimbabwe, meanwhile they have the 10th most expensive squad in the world when it comes to player values and the most expensive African squad. And as many people already know, the Super Eagles are overloaded in the attacking position with top attackers in form in top leagues around Europe. You made a video about biggest underachievers in football and Nigeria was on that list and I can confidently say that Nigeria are the biggest underachievers in African football by far as they should be head to head with Senegal and Morocco but they’re not.

As a Norwegian, this is pretty much spot on! Perfectly summes up everything wrong with our NT. Credit for making this video so detailed💯

As a Scotland fan I'm obviously happy that Norway underachieved again this time out, but looking at it from a neutral perspective it's maddening. International football is above all about finding a system that gets the most out of the available players. Scotland have two top class left backs, some quite technical, very fit and focussed midfielders and some okay but technical defenders. He created a system that matches us perfectly and we beat Spain 2-0 and could easily have been 4-0. Steve Clarke would have this Norway team in the knockout stages of a tournament. When we played them in Oslo their play was so predictably centred around Haaland that it made it easier to defend against than it should have. They also had nothing out wide. Taking Haaland off with 5 to go was wonderful too and we won the game. It's a team with a stupid amount of quality in it from back to front. It's a dream job for a quality coach. Just leave Steve Clarke alone please 😉.

Antonio Nusa is an insanely talented player at just 18. His injury hit 🇳🇴 hard in the qualifiers The frontline of Nusa - Haaland - Bobb Odegaard Is very promising. Nusa in particular is a Haaland tier talent. Reminds me of 18 year old Neymar

as a Slovak, I think Norway has a better team on paper than we do, and they mightve qualified in our group. However Slovakia's weakness is scoring, while Norway's is conceding. Conceding to sides they should beat is perhaps the biggest issue for the current Norway team?

I didnt even know they were golden generation to begin with.. But its indeed worrisome that they kinda have two top class players but a Gareth bale led wales to world cup tournament appearance.. Haaland and odengaard is just good system players, they need to step up personally in order for this team to at least qualified international tournament.. If gareth bale can inspired a bunch average joes so too haaland and odengaard..

I'm by no means an expert, but I'm old enough to remember the national team from 25-30 years ago who was able to quality for the euros and world cup. Partly you can probably contribute that to our unorthodox playing style at the time, and although we sometimes lacked good options up front, we had solid defenders back then. Players like Henning Berg, Ronny Johnsen and especially Rune Bratseth were pivotal. Solbakken has tried a lot of different constellations as centre-backs, and this position seems to be our achilles heel.

As a Norwegian I can only praise this level of research! You pretty much cover everything going on with our national team. Great work!

Scotland themselves are an excellent recent case in point here. Until 18 months ago Tierney was forced to play at RB which is probably his 5th choice position and Scotland suffered from the very imbalance. It's been noticeable that Scotland's form has dropped off dramatically since Hickey and Porteous have been injured. This is a tribute to Hickey and Porteous and Clarke finding the perfect formation for Scotland to flourish as a team.

Do people unironically consider this to be Norway's 'golden generation'? Like, surely, a 'generation' implies at the very least half the team being stellar, so 5-6 of the starting XI ought to be great. Norway has only two truly great players. C'mon, let's be serious...

I was literally searching for this since Romania qualified. How did we qualify and Norway did not was a big “?” for me 😂

During their golden age, Norway was 2nd on the FIFA ranking for quite some - and also met Scotland in their group in 1998.

Great video, really informative. Thank you!

Good video. I'd love to see you make one about the rise of the Luxembourg national team. They seem to have drastically improved

As a Norwegian it’s very frustrating cause we definitely have the players but the coach (Solbakken) doesn’t get the best out of his players and our defense is questionable and it doesn’t help when solbakken (Coach) doesn’t choose the best players we have and prefers favorites over actual decent players. Meling and Strandberg are a prime example of this. They’re far from best in their position but Solbakken keeps picking them

Alfie my good sir, you're the best content creator out there when it comes to football. I just simply have to rant about Zlatan for a bit though since I feel the full picture isn't really painted. Zlatan is one hundred percent the best Swedish footballer since maybe the 50s or 60s (probably the best of all time). Although he honestly didn't have a great effect on the Swedish national team. Before 2009 he was an asset and a cog -a golden one- in a bigger machinery. After 2009 and the appointment of Erik Hamrén as manager that changed. He was promised a role similar to Cruyffs in Ajax where he could do and say whatever he wanted. That worked in the regard of Zlatan scoring goals but not really in making Sweden a lot more competitive. Zlatan never went to a World Cup after 2006 and sure that could be because other talented players got to old and/or because Erik Hamrén wasn't the greatest of managers. It's just weird how the Swedish national team rose like a Phoenix from the ashes right after Zlatans retirement from international football after the 2016 Euros and went on to reach the quarterfinals in the 2018 World Cup. A lot more industriousness as a team and generally better results. He scored all the goals sure, but he also got every singe pass, like ever. Since he never was much of a creator that didn't really work out. Absolutely he had moments of pure brilliance when he single handedly thrashed England and also -as you pointed out- Denmark. So yes, Zlatan was the best player in the team, but I'm honestly not so sure that he made the team as a whole a lot better over say an entire qualifying round. Hadn't he basically forced his way to a role similar to a dictator on the pitch and in the dressing room I'm pretty sure I would feel different. At the same time that's a part of the package that is Zlatan. I just wanted to give you an average -very nerdy one- Swedish football fans perspective of the Zlatan era of the national team since I don't think Zlatan made the team a lot better. Also thank you for pointing out Norway is shit! Makes me as a swede filled with joy. Especially now that we've probably had the worst qualifiers since the 80s and looked as dead and plain as a concrete slab.

I agree with other comments, you made an excellent and informed analysis. I was also impressed with your knowledge of Janteloven.

Scotland should in no way have finished ahead of Norway in our qualification group. Our team is nowhere near as talented as Norway's. But we ARE a team. And play like one.

Even Poland, renowned as the biggest underachiever in Europe since the turn of the new century, qualified to even more World Cups and Euros than Norway, is enough to imagine how bad Norway is at the moment. With regard, I am also following shock report that Carlo Ancelotti may have secretly confirmed his interests to become coach of Brazil by signing to a contract yesterday. Considering Brazil is suffering from a string of poor result (notably suffered first-ever qualifying defeat to Colombia before another first by losing at home for the first time to Argentina), Ancelotti's confirmation (already stated few months ago by Fabrizio Romano but the contract agreement might be the first time heard) could reckon to change South American football landscape. Ancelotti is well-liked by many Brazilian players and this was perceived as a major shock in many Latin American countries about Ancelotti's upcoming arrival in replacement to interim coach Fernando Diniz.

Great video Alfie! You summarized the situation perfectly. Impressed with your research🇳🇴 Its crazy how everyone in Norway knows this is probably the best football we will see in our lives, but noone dares to get their hopes up

Do a video about the rise and fall and rise again of slovenian NT. From going to the euros in netherlands and belgium and 2002 wc and also the 2010 wc to nkt qualifying for any tournament for 14 years and now finnishing 2nd in their euro group with 22 points same as denmark but with a better GD

Next, do the same thing for Sweden and Bulgaria. They were the two big underdogs for the 1994 World Cup, having prevented 1998 host and champions France for playing in USA. However, since that historic tournament for the two countries: 1.Sweden finished last in the Nations League, which also costs the Euro 2024 playoffs. 2.Bulgaria didn't even grabbed a single win this year. The last 2 games were so unlucky that they should have won against Hungary and Serbia. They also got humiliated by Lithuania and Montenegro at home.

I have to say Ajer is brilliant and they should have played him in the last qualifying game. I hope I'm not overrating him because I like him, but yeah, he has the ability to be their third or fourth most important player, depending on Oscar Bobb's progression.

The syntetic pitch theory is very intresting. This year, the Romanian side FCSB (who played against a Danish team this year and a Norwegian one last year, in EUCL qualifiers) staff members complained about playing the away games on artificial turf, claiming that is impossible play and to make tackles, questioning the aproval of UEFA for those type of artificial pitches. As far as calling playing on them like "playing football on a cheap carpet".

That intro had my creasing, much love man ❤️❤️

I am hoping you to talk about the downfall of Paraguayan football. From once being among the strongest in South America into now a minnow, it is so hard to watch as a Paraguayan-American.

Sad that Bielsa was taken by Uruguay, he would be fantastic for nurturing a young group of players for the future and using good tactics to win matches. Sometimes smaller federations need to bring some outside experience used to higher stakes and pressure, to kickstart their growth before they can walk alone with local managers.

'in short' and there is a picture of Insigne 🤣🤣

Wow. Informative. I agree with everything as well.

Great videos💯👏🏼

Norwegians - much like Finns - seem to have a very chilled attitude towards football with an obvious reflection in their National Teams. Aside from the sporting arguments, the socio-cultural aspects you mentioned are also quite relevant.

"Football has competition from other past times like Skiing, Alcoholism, and being in Heavy Metal Bands." 😂 When Alfie stabs a nation, he does it from the back and the front 🤣

When you were talking about teams that infamously had one key player, you could’ve mentioned Canada with Davies. Going into the World Cup as the clear first place in qualifying, but bottling out once the World Cup group stage concluded.

Ireland is also in a similar shamble, so no, Norway is not the only one at fault. I think a couple of videos about underachieving national teams of Asia like Iraq, China, the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar can also help. Whereas Chinese fans are yelling about the team's poor quality after the defeat to South Korea 0-3, I think it is more sensible to talk about the shocking downfall of Kuwait, a nation once rocked the world by qualifying for the 1982 World Cup and even held Czechoslovakia 1-1.

Solbakken has consistently made poor choices regarding team selection and match management. It's inconceivable that he has a newish long term contract. I'd argue that the Golden Generation is another qualifying cycle away, with Bobb and Nusa to mature, but without a new manager and better defensive players, we'll continue to disappoint.

No mention of Lord Beaverbrook, or Henry Cooper. A picture of Maggie Thatcher should have led into the speach. Interesting documentary as always, thanks Alfie.

Thank you for this video. As a Norwegian, I can say you are spot on!

Still remember 1998, we were beating Scotland, and just a win while Norway failed to even grab a win and we would advance. Yet the Norwegians scored twice against already qualified Brazil to rob our last sixteen dream. This led to a lot of conspiracies that Brazil intentionally let Norway to score. Now their squad is even weaker than us.

Like the story of my tragic Myanmar. Once we had a golden generation that people expected to guide us to World Cup after the U19/20 successful U20 World Cup debut in 2015. Now they are the shadows of themselves due to coup and corruption. At least Norway is a decent democracy. Myanmar? Not so much.

Jan Aage Fjortoft has been on Viaplay on the UK, for Scotland/Norway, and was really interested in Scotland’s rise, and how Norway can learn from it. Without stealing Steve Clarke, please don’t anyone steal SC, basically, Scotland have started believing. It took some time, but it started with Clarke setting us up as hard to beat. Then we found a way of playing. Now, we’re actually good, and able to give bigger teams a game. That, and Scotland do have some very good players as well. Norway need to start somewhere on that journey.

If I'm not wrong, Aursnes has only not played as a centre back and goalkeeper since he's in Benfica, I know for a fact that he's played RB, LB, DM, CM, Left Winger, and I'm quite sure Striker. Not 100% sure about Right Winger and Central Attacking Midfielder. Many people would say his best position is as a more defensive left winger, allowing for the LB to bomb forward, providing defensiveness on the wing, while also being great at getting balls in the box and linking play.

I think you should also mention my country (Turkey) underachieving status. We have just sacked Stefan Kuntz and while we have achieved successes under Vincenzo Montella, deep down reasonable person like me knew that Montella cannot solve the inner problems and if Montella cannot live up to expectation, he will be taken scapegoat like Kuntz again. For us, Stefan Kuntz' tenure exposed how fragile Turkish football management is, and I fear our appointment of Montella is just an attempt to cover-up our management crisis.

This is even crazier than the weird fact that the best football nation in Southeast Asia is not even an Asian country. Australia, joining AFF since 2013, has been the best football nation among Southeast Asian nations despite its non-Southeast Asian history, to a point Southeast Asian nations have barred Australia from competing in the regional AFF Cup and even attempted, alongside the Arab monarchies of West Asia, to remove Australia in 2015 but without success. I think a video about why Southeast Asian nations have struggled to accept Australia as a member of this sub-confederation of the Asian confederation will be fun to take to account.

great video!

7:56 the chicago fire stray has me crying 😭

It was a little bit like Sweden in the 2010s when we had Zlatan (A highly controversial player and human being in Sweden even today.). He didn't always fit and was constantly questioned by both pundits and average fans. Sometimes the manager must have been relieved by his injuries. Some of this resistance probably was due to "Jantelagen" and racism. I have repeatedly heard people saying that he isn't reallly Swedish. So thanks for reminding me of his great achievements, Alfie!

i'd argue Aaron Ramsey was just as good and important, if not better than Bale in that Euro 2016. This was quite evident when he was banned for the semi's, and we lost our main assist threat and Portugal rolled us over. I said at the time that that was going to cost us and it did.

0:43 Can confirm, there’s a saying in Norway «Give the kids alcohol before sports take them»

I think there's an interesting contrast with the team at its peak in the 90s: good but hardly spectacular talent at the core, a solid defense but above all a system that made a mockery out of their opponents created by one of the sharpest coaches of his time.

I would love to see video about Ecuadors recent rise and Independiente del valle. Its pretty interesting topic I would love to see your take on it.

It's almost like elite strikers need a midfield feeder...

Hey Alfie , any chance you can do a video on Ireland , they just fired there manager and key players like james mclean just retired. I can’t see them going to another tournament in ages even with there talent young player

Could you rank the best coaches at euro 24 once all teams have qualified

Norway of the 90s really were the hipsters favourites. A Norwegian was pretty much a mainstay in every top premier league team. They keep letting us down and this time I really thought they would do it. To not even be in the euro qualifying play offs is a massive let down with their talent.

Norway are not the new Belgium. They’re not even the new Austria.

The "players playing out of their preferred position" - problem, will be solved now that Antonio Nusa, Oscar Bobb, Sverre Halseth Nypan and Andreas Sjelderup are coming through the ranks. At least on the flanks. I guess Sørloth and Strand Larsen will be substitues in the future when that happens. Unless Haaland is injured.

You need to do a similar video about Nigeria. We are pretty much going through the same thing.

To see the importance of a good manager one only needs to look at Greece´s run in the 2004 Euros

Forgot Sander Berge

Some other norwegians have already commented on this video, but I would just like to say that you one or more good sources on the norwegian national team. The only thing missing is that someone somewhere in the norwegian media has a tendency to hype us up and take some wins for granted. An example was the hungary match - TV2 (the broadcaster)was pretty much already celebrating us qualifying.

I’m from Norway and it’s so sad watching all these class players never get to participate in any major tournament because of our management 😢

Because the defence sucks. Really. If the opponent comes anywhere close the box, it's a goal.

So European countries that qualifaid for major tournament since Norway last did consist of powerhouses such as Latvia (Estonia almost) Iceland (2 twice) Albania,Finland, Bosnia and Hercegovina,North Macedonia and Northern Ireland, didnt wanna include countries like Slovenia, Slovakia,Romania out respect

Bodø/Glimt, Patrick Berg and Aspmyra mentioned! life's good B)

I was listening to this video thinking, what about this? And everytime i thought of something you then addressed it, including the women's national team. Great stuff

Great video! However, I am optimistic for the future. Our own league has not been this good for ages, and the top clubs are doing Well in Europe. Top talents are doing well in Europe such as Nusa, Bobb, Zafeiris and Schjelderup. Our youth teams (u19 and u21), have also qualified for several tournaments over the last years, which will give them experience from tournaments. Then again, we have to see if Solbakken is the right man when the Nations League starts next year, and the Qualifiers in 2025. Hopefully we can have some lucky draws for them aswell😅

Speaking of Haaland's attitude, note the picture at 29:58, when he is the only one not holding the "Fair Play for Migrant Workers"-banner. It was well-noted.

Rivals of Aether is amazing! Try it next!

As a Portuguese I must say with the professional first division league improves the national team will improve . Get Rosenborg and other teams to succeed in uefa competitions and your national team will be solid . It’s all about good managers that can transform rat labs into mutants if you know what I mean

Please make a video What the Earth is Going On With Sweden national team with they not qualifed to Euro 2024.

Golden generation = 2 great players these days apparently

Our manager never plays our best team, and brings players from the Norwegian leauge to play instead

Would love to see a video like this for what's gone wrong at the Irish team

Personally Kjetil Knuten would be the dream manager for Norway, a brand of attacking football, working wonders at Bodo Glimt and getting results against far superior teams relative to their budget

I never get why managers play a back 4 with this team, they’ve got a few decent centre backs and most of them play at a back 3 with club level and it would allow for another one of the strikers to play up top with Haaland, have Odegaard in behind creating with Aursnes & Berge in the middle and i think this team would cook

Isak Hansen-Aarøen is another young star coming through that united academy on his way to the first team. so they seem to have a good back up as well go young players that can take this team forward.

Fantastic video, although there's some points you didn't consider. 1. We (I'm Norwegian) played a lot of Friendly Matches the same Week before Qualifying Matches. Our "B-team" won almost every Single friendly match. Some we even could have scored 10+ goals, but we didn't want to humiliate the opponent. Then, instead of using the Squad with the Players who had a Great Experience actually Winning Matches. We decide to use our "Star Team" with people who have never won any National Team Games. I'm positive we would be in the EuroCup if we had kept the same Core 11 players for both the Friendly Matches & the Qualifying Matches. It makes no sense to use a different squad for friendly matches. The friendly matches should be an exercise to practice co-operation, attacking and defending Strategies. 2. Most of Norway's goals are either on The Head or a Kick from long-distance. Against Spain (in Norway) we had 0 kicks from distance. Haaland got the ball 4 times in 90 minutes. If we know how we score goals, why do we try to score goals through dribbling in Qualification matches??? "The Norwegian Team should get Nobel's Peace Price, due to not shooting at the opposing goal". If you look at UEFA EURO 2024 social medias. Almost all the goals this year was shots from long-distance. Why can't Norway learn from the other qualifying teams? 💀 3. The Norwegian U21 team play almost the same way as the Adult Team. If two different coaches can get the team to play the same kind of weak and boring football. It's not a problem with the Head Coach, but the culture in the organization. There's some kind of academy articles that should be burnt on the bonfire. I couldn't believe my eyes. Just look at Norway U21 against Italy U21. It's insecurities, inaccuracy and poorly planned decisions. 4. I'm almost convinced all the 5 Top teams in Norwegian League this year got a better attack strategy than our National Team. Bodø/Glimt, Brann, Tromsø, Viking and Molde, would have given Spain and Scotland way more Challenging matches than our National team. It's almost like our National Team should get their own Team in the National League, so it can practice winning and developing a mindset that's focused on the task at hand. Conclusion: I personally believe in Ståle Solbakken. Just a year ago our National Team was a bunch of Entitled superstars that were unable to pass the ball to each other. So he HAS made an imprint, now they play as a Squad, and a Team with a Common Goal. Now, I do want a New Football Strategy, because we can't keep losing matches in the 80th minute. So I believe Norway will be ready for both WC26 and Euro28. We just have to get rid of that horrible Law of Jante.

Feel bad for Norway, specially our boy Aursnes. He really deserves a Euro or WC presence.

Might have something to do with your main man not being surrounded by Rodri, Silva, Foden, Doku, KDB, Alvarez, Grealish… It’s exactly why Haaland would have failed in the same Tottenham side Harry Kane was scoring 30, 29, 25, 23 goals for.

As a Norwegian that has felt the qualifier curse for over 20 years, it gets worse and more painful for each season. The timing for specific decisions has been a key factor to disaster. Sometimes we haven't had good enough player options, but at the same time we've been very close to qualify multiple times. We have wasted many decent opportunities, and we have made it more difficult for ourselves. I have seen so many unnecessarily starting lineups and bad substitutions, especially when we have decent options. It's like we choose to play with 80% capacity or less instead of going all in. The only few times we played with 100% capacity was a time when Norway didn't have the luxury options we have now days, and we simply weren't good enough. The only exception was maybe the 90's. Even then there were eligible players that didn't get a fair chance. However that time period had the players and relevant tactics. Most of our coaches are the perfect comparison to idiotic chefs from Kitchen Nightmares. Lets put banana on a shrimp, and vanilla ice cream on a sausage. Let's ignore making things easy and efficient by putting cheese on a burger. That's Norwegian team sport logic for you! Let's ignore finding a right wing, let's put a slow striker or defensive/central midfielder to take an illogical and unfamiliar role. Or let's use a free agent without fitness in the starting lineup. What is even more sad is how the federations are running things. The coaches are bad, but the federation is next level dogshite. We sack a coach when the players are rubbish, and they extend the contract if good players are not performing to their average ability. The federation is clueless! When Ståle Solbakken got the job in 2009, he decided to terminate his contract and coach Köln in the Bundesliga instead. After getting sacked there, he was even worse in Wolverhampton. He has done two decent jobs in his life. FC Copenhagen and HamKam, and I'll say that is an irrelevant CV to take over a team like Norway. I was so glad we dodged that bullet in 2009. However I knew we shot ourselves in the foot, when this fool got a second chance. I can't blame Solbakken for taking the job, but I really hope his time will end soon. Possibly a few people in the Norwegian football federation needs replacement as well. What a mess!

Very good analysis, altough the main reason we are relatively bad now is because we have a manager that likes 4-4-2 formation

Best German players in the premier league of all time. (Day 574) I will not give up until the video is made or Alfie himself tells me to stop. Everyone else telling me that will be ignored. If you don't believe my number, just go back to the previous videos. I'm at the bottom most of the time, but I'm there.

Still waiting for you to cover the rampant corruption and negligence by the Bulgarian Football Union with the most recent scandal being the match against Hungary and the nation-wide protests sparked by this event.

Problem is they lack class central defenders and GK

haaland was cursed when he chose to represent norway instead of england to never play at an international tournament jokes aside its worth pointing out that norway haven't been to a tournament since 2000... they've had good players in that entire time... but always fail to qualify,.... problem is deeper than the players

Video Idea: The expansion of the World Cup to include 48 teams, and it's impact, for better or worse, on the sport.