Norway’s national women’s football team was jubilant Wednesday night after beating the powerhouse German team 1-0 in the European Championships playing out in Sweden. The victory means Norway won its group and moves on to the quarter-finals early next week.
“It was wonderful to finally beat the Germans,” Norwegian goalkeeper Ingrid Hjelmseth told NRK.no. “Now we’ve blanked our opponents two matches in a row. I feel like we had good control.”
Ada Hegerberg, who plays professionally for Turbine Potsdam in Germany, was thrilled. “We’ve always been a bit ground by the Germans,” Hegerberg told NRK. “They’ll hear about this when I come back to Germany. Right now we’re just going to savour this victory and the get ready for the quarter-finals.”
Germany had been heavily favoured but Norway ended up breaking their long string of championship matches without losing since 1993. The Norwegian victory surprised everyone including their archrivals in Sweden, who now face a tougher road to the finals.
Ingvild Isaksen scored the winning goal just before the break and happily received the cheers of the crowd in the stadium in Kalmar. The Norwegians will have to wait until Thursday, though, to find out who’ll they’ll meet in quarter-final action Monday: Spain, Russia or England.
newsinenglish.no staff
