Norway’s highly rated women’s football team collapsed into what Norwegian media outlets are calling a “fiasco” at the European Championships this summer. They lost their third game in a row Monday night to Denmark, by a score of 1-0, and thus found themselves knocked out of further competition.
“Three matches, zero goals, zero points,” summed up newspaper Aftenposten on Tuesday after yet another disappointing match in host country the Netherlands on Monday. “That’s the status after the worst championship performance ever for a Norwegian women’s football team.”
They almost won the last World Championships and the team includes Norwegian player Ada Hegerberg, ranked as Europe’s best player. That didn’t help as they lurched from one bad match to another in their prestigious Group A that included the Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium. Norway has now lost to them all.
“Perhaps the expectations for the Norwegian team were too high before the championships began,” wrote Aftenposten. “The next challenge will be qualifying for the next World Cup, which begins right after the summer.” They’ll face the Netherlands again in October.
The national team’s new coach, Martin Sjögren, claimed Tuesday that he still has faith in what he called a “young and inexperienced group. I think they can become very good over time.”
newsinenglish.no staff
