Norway’s national men’s football team ended a long losing streak on home turf in Oslo Tuesday night, but that doesn’t assure the future of the team’s much-criticized coach Per-Mathias Høgmo. Fans and commentators weren’t impressed by the 4-1 victory over San Marino.
The match was, however, a World Cup qualifier and it would have been disastrous if the Norwegians had lost it as well. In the end, Høgmo could celebrate that his young team had scored and notched up some points.
Aftenposten commentator Ola Bernhus wrote that Høgmo, who’s been a target of speculation that he’s about to be fired, was only six minutes away from a “total fiasco” when the winning goals came towards the end of the match. Bernhus wrote how a low point was reached when the teams were booed off the field at the break, when the score was tied 1-1.
“For 75 minutes we didn’t think Norwegian national team football could sink any lower than it had before the match (after Norway had lost to Azerbaijan during the weekend), but it clearly could,” Bernhus wrote. With San Marino ranked way down at 201st, it was great victory when Norway won. Høgmo appeared to be hanging on Wednesday, but it was unclear for how long.
newsinenglish.no staff
