Why Is Norway's 'Golden Generation' So Bad?

The Scottish commentators didn't even understand why Norway had so low energy, almost seemed paralyzed. That's because the Norwegian players is a bunch of mamas boys who are afraid of winning. They stick their heads into the sand when confronted. They had it too easy through life, and never actually had to stand up.

The coach is a sad, old-schooled bloke without charisma. He bases everything on paper stats, and who plays for the better teams. He has Bodø/Glimt players who has done great in Europe. Instead he goes with a Lazio bench player who's the biggest mess you'll ever see. Just because his papers says Lazio, coach puts him in the starting 11, thinking he's a God! Truth is... the guy doesn't even play regular football. He has no idea about how to play, he just wants all the stars to be packed into a starting 11. And the Faderation is the same type of waffle eating, coffee slurping brainless paper mafia.

Have a look at Girona. The perfect example of Spanish success in football. A small team, but they have a plan. The coach created different approaches towards defensive and attacking plays, he had a plan from the beginning. And there are no Haaland or Premier League stars on the team. It's just pure attention to details, and belief in what they are doing. That way they are creating a winning culture. The team even plays cocky short passes after 95 minutes against Atletico Madrid (when leading 4-3)! Norway will never reach this level of skill and cockiness! Never!

Once again a fine video with many great points.
But Seriously, foreigners have got to stop with the “jantelov” now. Every time somebody does a video about Scandinavia you bring this up, as if it was a religious belief or something🙄
The term is from a FICTIONAL book written almost 100 years ago and the authors point was that all people around the world treat each other like that in small towns.
The Nordic contries are not like this at all, people are warm and friendly and have the strongest welfare states on the planet because we see the value in protecting our fellow citizens.

We had a Golden generation in the 90s. And a Golden generation dont come often. I hope they can become a Golden generation, but I dont think so. I hop I have to eat my words.

Our only flex is that we have never been beat by Brazil

As a Scot, the difference between us and Norway has been attitude. The reason why we're going through our own golden generation is because Steve Clarke has built it into one and the only time that didn't show in these qualifiers was our last 2 games after qualifying was guaranteed. Norway need a manager with clear ambition to rebuild the national team into a competitive side. I reckon that Bodo Gliimt's manager would be perfect for them

Alcoholism 😂😂😂💔

Would you maybe like to talk about the winter olympics as well? We literally had a guy quit because he felt he was ruining wintersports due to only Norway winning in his branch...

Solskjær should have been trainer. Yes

Poor management and leadership is the answer. Our players are not objectively bad, just tactically retarded.
Pardon my french.

"Why is Norway's Golden Generation so bad?" Because we suck donkey dick! It's a team sport and having 1-2 really good players won't change that. Norway fucking sucks.
And before anyone says anything; I'm Norwegian and would love to see both Haaland and Ødegaard at a big event with a good team playing together

Scotland's win in Oslo was one of the greatest steals in Euro Qualification history and I say that as a Scot!

Good point, they might be awful at football but they punch above their weight when it comes to Heavy Metal!

There should be no real need to develop a strategy based on the players available when you have literally an entire country's playerbase to pick from.
You should be able to pick your players based on your strategy or philosophy assuming you have one...

All Norwegian managers in the last 20 years keep shoehorning players that play internationaly into their teams. Ignoring talented players in the domestic league and favouring players just because they play in the championship or the german 2. division...

All the potential of the "strong on paper" team just makes it more depressing to watch the national team. Imagining what could be.

How about the manager is shit.

Norwegian players alone: 💪💪💪
Norwegian players together: 🤮🤮🤮

Maybe Norway needs a non-scandinavian- manager to help them out of this rut. They were pretty stale even before Solbakken took charge. I mean if someone who failed to qualify with their national team (Lagerback) is made Norway's manager, it just shows a lack of vision when it comes to what the FA expects from the team. Pretty much how every government run institute runs in the country.

Norway is not a fotball nation.

its the defence who are bad

Very good analysis, altough the main reason we are relatively bad now is because we have a manager that likes 4-4-2 formation

Another point, I forgot to include:

The Majority of our "Star Team" players play in Warmer Climate in Europe.

So when they come home to Norway to play in Oslo.

They aren't used to the climate. So I believe we would be bettee off having a Squad from the Norwegian League playing our Home Matches.

During the November Match against Spain. Haaland, and others stars were freezing their ass off.

While our National League players were just having another day on the job, and were un-phased.

Fantastic video, although there's some points you didn't consider.

1. We (I'm Norwegian) played a lot of Friendly Matches the same Week before Qualifying Matches.

Our "B-team" won almost every Single friendly match. Some we even could have scored 10+ goals, but we didn't want to humiliate the opponent.

Then, instead of using the Squad with the Players who had a Great Experience actually Winning Matches.

We decide to use our "Star Team" with people who have never won any National Team Games.

I'm positive we would be in the EuroCup if we had kept the same Core 11 players for both the Friendly Matches & the Qualifying Matches.

It makes no sense to use a different squad for friendly matches. The friendly matches should be an exercise to practice co-operation, attacking and defending Strategies.

2. Most of Norway's goals are either on The Head or a Kick from long-distance.

Against Spain (in Norway) we had 0 kicks from distance. Haaland got the ball 4 times in 90 minutes.

If we know how we score goals, why do we try to score goals through dribbling in Qualification matches???

"The Norwegian Team should get Nobel's Peace Price, due to not shooting at the opposing goal".

If you look at UEFA EURO 2024 social medias. Almost all the goals this year was shots from long-distance.

Why can't Norway learn from the other qualifying teams? 💀

3. The Norwegian U21 team play almost the same way as the Adult Team.

If two different coaches can get the team to play the same kind of weak and boring football.

It's not a problem with the Head Coach, but the culture in the organization.

There's some kind of academy articles that should be burnt on the bonfire.

I couldn't believe my eyes. Just look at Norway U21 against Italy U21.

It's insecurities, inaccuracy and poorly planned decisions.

4. I'm almost convinced all the 5 Top teams in Norwegian League this year got a better attack strategy than our National Team.

Bodø/Glimt, Brann, Tromsø, Viking and Molde, would have given Spain and Scotland way more Challenging matches than our National team.

It's almost like our National Team should get their own Team in the National League, so it can practice winning and developing a mindset that's focused on the task at hand.

Conclusion:

I personally believe in Ståle Solbakken. Just a year ago our National Team was a bunch of Entitled superstars that were unable to pass the ball to each other.

So he HAS made an imprint, now they play as a Squad, and a Team with a Common Goal.

Now, I do want a New Football Strategy, because we can't keep losing matches in the 80th minute.

So I believe Norway will be ready for both WC26 and Euro28.

We just have to get rid of that horrible Law of Jante.

You could say the same of the Belgian team of previous years. Nr 1 ranked FIFA team for years, yet 0 achievements.

We do play a lot of fotball as young, but so many decent players get side lined by coaches who have either own kids who play who they push forward/ or specific favorites.
Our current "Big" players are bad compared to other countries, they are not bad, bad, but they all give me a "spoiled brat" vibe

Let's just say most people i know, except the few fotball idiots i know, always know that our country will not reach any world cup or European championships

Feel free to argue, this is just my point of view as a rando Norwegian on the interwebs -whoosh

Missing a great defender and keeper. But also if manager was smarter with positioning it would be easier

Honestly, it doesn't even matter why. The point is, Erling is getting embarrassed and hamstrung by it, and we should all celebrate that for the sake of keeping some excitement and stakes and heart left in the sport. Do feel a bit sorry for Odegaard, though.

Very bad manager + a job for the boys culture in the federationis the main reason.

Just so you know the double a, aa, is actually the Norwegian letter å, and is pronounced like the o in oh, or something like that

Norway did have a foreign manager, Lars Lagerbäck, who took Sweden, Nigeria and even ICELAND to the World Cup, but failed with Norway. Even Finland which has the same population size, climate and pessimistic mentality - but no history whatsoever of qualifying - reached the last Euros.

they should hire Ole Gunnar Solskjær

It's because of the damned texting, it has isolated people, not to mention the butchering of the language. And it's not in football only, it's in everything, all over the world. The new generations do not enjoy the simple but full pleasures of life, like us, the 60 year olds. They just look at a tiny screen and typing nonsense.

Alcoholism 😂😂😂😂😂 yes UK has something to say about alcoholism 😂😂😂😂

Norway's problem is multifaceted. "A team is only as strong as its weakest player." The goalkeeper is perhaps the worst in Europe, without exaggeration. Additionally, we have an aging 33-year-old player lacking pace from Vålerenga, a team on the verge of relegation in the Norwegian league. His partner is a benchwarmer from Napoli. Moreover, Solbakken, who relies on zonal defense, a strategy that hasn't worked at all for the national team. His playing style fails to bring out the best in Haaland and Ødegaard. Speaking of the Golden Generation, the squad from 1994-1998, from midfield to goalkeeper, was better than today's team. Only the attack is superior now. Norway won't reach the Euros or World Cup without a better center-back duo and goalkeeper, along with a manager who doesn't employ zonal defense.

NFF hire managers based on long-term friendship. That's where the problem is. Instead of having competent managers for the job.
That, and how norwegians in general are wired which translates into what we see on the pitch. Thinking we are better than we actually are.
Our best players play in Premier League, La Liga and Serie A so we are more than qualified to do better.

It's hard to win games without a single decent defender...

Solbakken should go.

I agree Solbakken isn’t good enoght but who comes in?

First of all, the manager has a sub-par CV and can't get the best out of this team.
And the so called "golden generation" is only two players. The rest isn't any better than norwegian teams from the past. So i think they would be doing better with a better manager, but this is far from a team that qualifies for every tournament...

When qualified: your sack
When failed to qualify: you stay

The concensus in Norway is that the single greatest moment in our sport history was the win over Brazil in WC 98. Not winter olympics or anything like that. We love football as much as any other country, we're just not that good at it

Mid to late 90's was Norways golden age. Overall this team isn't close to that one.

The easiest way to describe Janteloven is "We do not approve of flexing"

Rivals of Aether is amazing! Try it next!

I'm so used to seeing Norway inexplicably do ridiculously well in sports despite having a population 1/7 of California's that this almost doesn't compute for me. I'm not even talking about skiing or alcoholism here-- Warholm and Ingebrigtsen alone would be a crazy talent haul for most countries of that size, and that's just in athletics.

It's got to be the federation.

The Norwegian women’s team is way better than the men’s by miles. And I say this through accolades and consistent top ranking in the world. Literally the team is going through a dark age yet they can still comfortably qualify for a major tournament, unlike the men’s team which has no depth aside from Haaland and Ødegaard.

i honestly think that we just cant play team games very well in general. We have always more or less been shit at this sport.