Morty
Well-known member
[MENTION=4432]Morty[/MENTION] First of all: Congratulations to you for the huge win against Croatia. I didnt expect Norway to be good enough to reach such a win against a big team like Croatia. Norway could have won even higher, as I saw there were some chances to make the 3rd goal at the end of the match.
I'm always rooting for Norway because I love Scandinavia and cheer for every nordic team (even for boring Denmark). However, I still don't really believe that you make it to the Euro next year to be honest. I guess Croatia will win both of their last matches. Bulgaria seems to be a harmless opponent and Malta is Malta.In that case Norway has to defeat Italy ... Well, probably Italy will be already qualified before the match against you, so that is positive for you. But nevertheless it's very hard to beat them. I saw the first match between Italy and Norway and there was a big quality difference between these teams.
Basically I think Norway will reach the 3rd place and qualify for the play-off matches. The problem for Norway is that I think they will be in the unseeded pot together with teams like Israel and Hungary and so on. You will get an opponent of the seeded pot, that might be Russia, Denmark or Ukraine... Norway has to overachieve to beat teams like those, but ofc there is a chance.
In general I'm delighted that Norway is taking steps forward again in football. Two clubs qualified for the group stage in the Europa League, national team reach some good results and you got talents like Martin Ödegaard. I think you guys don't have to be worried about the future, I just don't see you reaching the Euro. I hope I'll be wrong
Croatia was definitely the favorite, all they talked about in the match studio before the match was the quality of the Croatian players, and how good the team is. We would be happy with a draw, because that would mean we had a spot in the playoffs secured, since we've won both matches against Bulgaria. But to win, that was pretty amazing.
At 1-0, I wasn't really convinced we'd win, but after the second goal, it looked like Croatia sort of collapsed, altho we were really lucky that Mario Mandžukić didn't score, he was really close a couple of times, and we could have lost if he had scored.As for what's coming up, we pretty much agree. Croatia will most likely win both of their matches, so it all comes down to the match against Italy for us. I don't really think Italy will already be qualified, they have 3 points on Croatia, but they played 1-1 against eachother in both matches, and Croatia has a better goal difference. So Italy will probably need a draw, while we will need to win. I'm pretty sure Italy has this. Our only hope is really that Bulgaria can get a point (or 3) in their match against Croatia... So that means playoffs for us, and you saw our history. We've struggled with playoffs. We're ranked in the 60's on the FIFA list, so we will definitely be unseeded. On the other hand, if we can beat Croatia, and get a draw against Italy, we could also beat whoever we meet in the playoffs, as this is a momentum we haven't had in a LONG time. If we lose against Italy, I think we're done, tbh, we need the confidence from the last match when we go into the playoffs.
Thanks for the support, I haven't been this excited about our national team in over 10 years, so fingers crossed.
Congrats for the win!
The Croatian players seemed absolutely unmotivated to me. A big amount of our players play in the best clubs and the level they showed today is on the level of some Pot 4 country. For example, Mario Mandžukić had 2-3 amazing chances to score the goal (when it was still 0:0) but he missed all of them. The other players were also far from their usual level. They wanted to play more defensively (in both matches), just to catch the result 1-0 but Croatia never wins when it plays this way round. Only Italy can play like that (they always win with a one-goal difference).
We should attack until the last minute like we did in the first matches (6:0 against Azerbaijan and 5:1 against Norway). That kind of Croatia can go very far on the Euro 2016, I dare to say even to the last phases. We have one of the strongest (Croatian) teams ever and it would be a shame if we don't make the most out of it. Even though, Croatia needs a new, more experienced coach.
Anyway, I don't worry too much about qualifying to the Euro. I'm sure we will qualify in whichever way. I'd say Norway will qualify as well. I think the best ranked 3rd team will be from our group. In the end, even Italy could end 3rd if Norway won against them (and Croatia wins both matches of course).
Thanks!
1Mario Mandžukić had some incredible opportunities, so we were lucky he didn't score. You were really the best team when we scored our first goal, and I think that goal changed a lot in the match. After that, Croatia seemed to lose all confidence, and when we scored our 2nd, it was pretty much over. We still feared that you'd score a goal tho, as that would have given you a huge boost, and made the last minutes of the match a little too exciting for us...
But I still think you have better chances to get to the Euro 2016 than we do, whether it'll be as one of the top 2 teams, or in the playoffs. The question is, can we join you..? It's gonna be an exciting end to this qualifier, that's for sure.
3
See you next year in France!