Norway was in shock.
The loss against England is the biggest in European Championship history – and it is a Swede who gets the blame.
“The worst match coaching I have seen,” writes TV2’s expert Yaw Ihle Amankwah.
Norway got off to a good start at this year’s European Championships and it was never even close to a points loss in the meeting against Northern Ireland, which they defeated 4-1. England, together with Norway, has been tipped to be a team that can go really far in this year’s championship, and it was thus difficult to predict a winner before Monday’s meeting between the teams.
The Swede was sawn
But that would end in historic humiliation. Already after a quarter, the home team led 2-0, and in the 41st minute, Manchester City star Ellen White scored her second goal in the match until the crazy 6-0 (!). The match ended 8-0 in the end, and there has never been a bigger margin of victory in the European Championships.
Martin Sjögren is the national team captain for Norway, and afterwards it is the Swede who gets the criticism for the loss. He was seen above all for how he let the numbers go away, and that he did not make any changes before half time.
“History’s worst match coaching”, writes Norwegian TV2’s expert Yaw Ihle Amankwah.
“Never seen anything like it”
In Norway, people were more or less in shock, and the experts barely got the word out about the loss.
– It’s downright embarrassing. Not in my wildest imagination had I imagined that it could be like this, says NRK commentator Andreas Stabrun Smith, who was supported by the expert Carl-Erik Torp.
– It’s simply little girls against seniors. It’s sad to see.
In Norway, there is now talk that confidence in Martin Sjögren may be depleted, and that it will be difficult to recover from the humiliating loss.
– It is one of the most embarrassing things I have seen from a Norwegian national team. Totally without offensive play. Equally totally without defensive structure – and on that many of the players look terrified. It can be impossible to get worse, says expert Lars Tjärnås.
Journalist Aleksander Schau takes it even further:
– I have a pretty good memory, and I’m approaching 48 years. I have been crazy about sports since I was 4-5 years old. Of everything that the Norwegian national team has done: Football, handball, bandy, sports, all parade sports – I have never seen a Norwegian national team so humiliated. This was a pure horror movie.
READ MORE: This is how Lasse Granqvist has changed his comment completely – to reduce hatred in society: “Is there an impact”