28 years later, the World Cup finally waited for Norway?

Written by Hanbing In the last round of the 1998 World Cup group stage, Norway, who was tall and powerful, scored two goals in the last 7 minutes to reverse Brazil, which was shocked by the football world. But after that session, Norway has not entered the World Cup finals yet, and has not even entered the European Cup finals after 2000.

In recent years, even with two superstars with a net worth of 100 million, Haaland and Odegao, Norway still missed the 2022 World Cup and the 2024 European Cup, becoming one of the representatives of the "superstar weak team".

But on June 6, Norway defeated Italy 3-0, and won three consecutive victories in the 2026 World Cup European qualifiers. The last time Norway defeated the world champion in the official match was the 2-1 victory over Brazil in the 1998 World Cup group stage. Coincidentally, in the 1/8 final four days later, Norway was eliminated by Italy 0-1 and missed the World Cup. History seems to have gone through a long cycle, and now Norway's dream of the World Cup has fallen on Italy again...

"Super" Norway has begun to show its power

Less well-known: after 2000, the Norwegian team, which missed the finals for 25 years, once ranked second in the world (October 1993, July and August 1995, respectively). However, Norway has never been able to prove itself in the competition, and its presence in the competition is far inferior to neighboring countries Sweden and Denmark. Norway's world ranking also dropped to an all-time low of 88 in July 2017. However, Norway has gradually begun to improve in recent years, starting from the 50th international ranking in July 2024, and has now risen to 36th.

The UEFA Group Stage began in September 2024, and the Norwegian team finally started the strong team mode: 7 wins and 1 loss in 8 official games. They first won 4 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss in the B-level group stage of the UEFA Nations League and won 1 place in the group stage, and advanced to the A-level of the UEFA Nations League; starting in March this year, they won three consecutive victories, with a goal loss of 10-2, and were far ahead in the group stage standings.

This is the best performance of the Norwegian team in the official competition since the 2000 European Cup qualifiers achieved 8 games, 7 wins and 1 draw. In the previous 1994 World Cup qualifiers, Norway also achieved 8 games, 7 wins and 1 draw, and defeated the Netherlands and England successively, which directly led to England missing the opportunity to qualify. This performance is comparable to 32 years ago, but the one who may miss the opportunity to qualify was replaced by another world champion Italian team.

Although the performance of the just-concluded season was not satisfactory, the two largest stars of Norway, Haaland and Odegao, both declined, and the total value of Norway, which defeated Italy, still exceeded 500 million euros, a record high. It ranks 12th in the world national team's net worth ranking, comparable to Sweden and Belgium. The 3-0 win against Italy, which is 224 million euros higher than his own, further proves the strength of the Norwegian team.

In the World Cup group stage, Norway has beaten Moldova, Israel and its only competitor, Italy. Before the away game to Italy on November 16, Norway has 4 games left, so their goal is naturally to strive for a winning streak. Even if he loses away to Italy by then, he is likely to win the top spot in the group by goal difference and return to the World Cup in 28 years.

It is worth mentioning that in the group stage of the 1994 World Cup, Norway lost 0-1 to Italy. In the end, the four teams in the group had the same points and goal difference. Norway missed the knockout round due to a small number of goals. As time goes by, Norway has an absolute advantage in scoring goals in direct competition with Italy. Norway's rise, shocking the entire Europe, 3-0 victory over Italy, is a milestone for Norwegian football, and it proves that the Norwegian team led by Haaland and Odgau finally qualifies to return to the stage of the competition. The last time Norway defeated Italy was the warm-up match 25 years ago. In June 2000, Norwegian defeated the Italian team, which was full of superstars, with the goal of Gambian high center Karu, in Oslo. The Italian team at that time had Buffon, Cannavaro, Nesta, Maldini, Conte, Albertini, Zambrota, Inzaghi and Toti. Piero, Montera and Toldo could only play as a substitute, while Flo, Solskjaer and Karu were only slightly famous in Norway.

25 years later, almost the stars of the two teams changed positions, and as many as 11 Norwegian teams have valued more than 10 million euros. Haaland (180 million) and Odegao (85 million) are world-class stars, as well as Larson (Wolves, Premier League), Noosa (RB Leipzig, Bundesliga), Thurot (Atletico Madrid, La Liga), Bayrig (Fulham, Premier League), Bob (Manchester City, Premier League) and Lylesson (Borthmund, Bundesliga) are worth more than 20 million euros. Although the Italian team's total value is 224 million euros more than Norway's team, the highest value Barrera is only 75 million, and can only rank third in Norway. Starting midfielder Rovilla (18 million), forward Retgi (16 million), central defender Di Lorenzo (15 million), left-back Coppola (7.5 million), right-back Zapacosta (6 million) has a net worth less than 20 million, and is in the same level as Norwegian midfielder. Is Norwegian players becoming stronger and more expensive, or is Italian players becoming worse and more cheap?

At least from the beginning of the European region of this World Qualifier, Norway's attack power is superior to Europe. Against their two strongest rivals, Italy and Israel, Norway scored 7 goals in two games, averaging 3.5 goals per game. In the six European qualifiers that have already started, Norway scored the most goals (12), which is more than the total goals of Bosnia and Herzegovina (4 goals) and Wales (7 goals) who also won three consecutive games in Group H.