NORWAY’S DECLINE
Sitting out the big events
NAME a Norwegian international who isn’t Josh King. Come on - anyone. Not as easy as it seems, is it? Yet had you asked the same question 20 years ago, the names would have flowed like an uncorked bottle of Aquavit.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Tore Andre Flo. Henning Berg, Ronny Johnsen. Champions League winners. Premier League players. Stars at the peak of their profession.
With such an abundance of talent, it is hardly surprising that Egil ‘Drillo’ Olsen’s side bestrode the globe battering all and sundry.
In October 1993, Norway briefly climbed to second place in FIFA’s nascent rankings system - a position they also occupied in 1995.
Two years later, they beat a Brazil side featuring Romario, Roberto Carlos and a 20-year-old Ronaldo at the peak of his powers.
The result, a 4-2 hiding featuring goals from Southampton striker Egil Ostenstad and Sheffield Wednesday flop Petter Rudi, was Brazil’s only defeat in a 36-match run spanning more than two years.
Remarkably, the Norwegians would repeat that feat at the 1998 World Cup in France, this time winning 2-1, before losing to finalists Italy in the last 16. In 2000, Spain were vanquished at the European Championships.
Few would have imagined then that Norway would not be seen at an international tournament again. But almost 20 years later, that remains the case. What went wrong?
That Norwegian football lies in the doldrums is not in doubt. In 1998, 63 per cent of the national squad plied their trade in one of Europe’s major top-flight divisions - England, Germany, Spain, France or Italy.
Today, that figure has dwindled to 34 per cent. A further 26 per cent have been culled from second-tier clubs in England and Germany.
Similarly, whilst half of the France 98
crop had featured in either the Champions League, Cup Winners’ Cup or UEFA Cup, barely eight per cent of current players have any experience of European football at club level. That is why you haven’t heard of anyone.
If such stats speaks of dwindling quality, so do the results. In July 2017, Norway plunged to 88th in the world rankings, their lowest placing since records began.
They have since climbed to
48th, but currently lie second bottom of a European Championship qualification group that contains Malta and the Faroe Islands.
Even now, with the expanded Euros easier to qualify for than a high-interest credit card, de Løvene look incapable of ending two decades of drought.
Fingers have been pointed at Terje Svendsen, the head of the Norwegian FA, and his predecessor, Yngve Hallen. Youth development, too, has fallen under the spotlight. Everyone in Norway wants to know what is wrong.
Perhaps, though, the question they should be asking is: What went right? After all, the past 20 years are hardly unprecedented. Prior to 1994, Norway had not qualified for a major tournament in 56 years. It is the 90s that are the anomaly. And in a 2017 paper titled The success culture of Nordic football, Frode Telseth and Vidar Halldorsson offer a compelling reason why.
Telseth and Halldorsson point out that, until 1991, Norwegian football was an entirely amateur affair. With that came an amateur outlook.
Fun, enjoyment, camaraderie; these were the drivers of Norway’s ‘Golden Generation’. They socialised. They went out and got hammered after training. Berg and Erik Mykland even had to be dragged out of a bar on the eve of a game during France 98. “I never dreamed of being
a professional player or something like that,” said Mykland, a midfielder who won 78 caps between 1990 and 2000. “I just played football because it was fun, and the years from seven to seventeen were the most fun.”
Technically, they were limited, at least initially. But Olsen - borrowing heavily from the long-ball style of 80s England - crafted a functional and pragmatic system that prized effort over grace. Like modern-day Iceland, the players bought in, forging a unity of purpose.
One need only look at Wimbledon’s rise in the 70s and 80s to see the transformative power of such seemingly humdrum qualities.
Meanwhile, professionalism was on the rise. In Norway, money was being ploughed into facilities and clubs. Players were handed full-time contracts.
Players like Gunnar Halle, Alf Inge-Haaland and Berg earned moves to the rapidly-improving Premier League, gaining exposure to elite opposition and world-class colleagues. It is, say Telseth and Halldorsson, this blend of technical improvement and old-school values that made Norway great. It was unique to its time, a genie that escaped the bottle.
And whilst players now are as fit and professional as any who ever lived, they are also more individual, more focussed on wages, endorsements and career advancement than having a laugh with old mates. “I think it is true,” said Oyvind Leonhardsen, the former Wimbledon and Liverpool winger who scored 19 goals in 86 games for his country.
“I felt it was more fun the first years with the national team. There was a stronger collectivism in those days.”
Of course, there are other factors. England was once a second home for Norwegian players who’d grown up watching the old First Division in preference to their own top flight.
Our values - strength, fair-play, physical effort - became theirs, allowing players like Halle and Berg to slot seamlessly into the burgeoning Premier League.
Like English players, though, Norwegians have been gradually forced out by TV money, the power of which allows even relegation strugglers to sign global superstars. Of the 1998 World Cup squad, 11 of the 22 players played in the Premier League, and three of those for Manchester United, the dominant side of the era.
Today, there are just three Norwegians of any variety - King, Southampton’s Mohamed Elyounoussi, and Fulham’s lesser-spotted defender Havard Nordtveit.
Otherwise, it is hard to blame youth development. Even in the 80s and 90s, Norway was not producing bountiful yields of young talent. With the exception of 1998, the nation did not qualify for a single Under-21 European Championship. Players like Flo and Solskjaer were a product of experience, not coaching, making it hard to argue that standards have slipped.
Finally, look at England’s own golden generation. Steven Gerrard, David Beckham, Rio Ferdinand, Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney; we possessed a squad the envy of Europe, even the world.
We lacked nothing for talent and experience. But how often did we hear of dressing room cliques, divisions along club lines? How often did big-name players give friendlies the swerve or give off-record briefings about managerial failings?
It says much that Gareth Southgate’s greatest achievement as England manager is seen not as reaching a World Cup semi-final but in fostering the spirit and team ethic that propelled us there.
Viewed through this prism, the argument that Norway’s national team lack heart and soul makes sense.
But whilst our Golden Generation had world-class talent to paper over the cracks, Norway do not. It will be a long road back to respectability – if they ever get there at all.