Norway had several chances of qualifying for the Euros but they never lived up to their expectations. Haaland is the best striker in the world and Odegaard is a top midfielder and captain, for both the national team and one of the best teams in the Premier League. Norway is still managing to feed Haaland, with an insane 27 goals. What gives, terrible tactics or synergy issues?
Gareth Bale got Wales to the semi finals of the Euros and qualified for a World Cup.
International football is not club football, great players can carry terrible teams and managers very far.
Haaland & Odegaard bottled it 🤷♀️
Taking Bale, Haaland, and Odegaard out of the conversation, that Wales team had better players than this Norway team.
I don’t think that’s fair. If you’re taking Odegard out of the conversation, you have take Ramsey out too. That said, Wales still had a better team. Joe Allen was better than Norway’s third best player. Williams and Hennessey were also good players. Norway really doesn’t have the depth of quality that Wales had 10 years ago.
Norway’s third best player is Ostigard, who starts for the Serie A holders Napoli
Haaland is a different kind of player. He doesn’t create much himself, he just scores most chances he is given. Put him in a shit team and he is shit too.
Bale is much more a creator. Give him the ball and something will happen.
Yep and that isn’t a slight on Haaland either. You need those players that rely on the creativity of others. Someone who converts the majority of their chances is massively important for a team. As a Chelsea fan I appreciate that a lot because it’s the one thing that’s been holding us back recently. Lewandowski was the same. Unbelievable at club level where his job was to convert the chances the team created for him, more underwhelming at international level because he didn’t have the quality around him to shine. You just have to remind yourself of what a realistic expectation is for those mind of players.