Norway have world class attacking talent – but yet again they have underwhelmed

Italy’s 2-1 quarter-final victory over Norway was one of those stories almost as old as football itself: a cohesive group of middling players defeating a disjointed group of world-class players.

And if that sounds like an insult to Italy’s Cristiana Girelli, who scored two classic centre-forward goals, or Sofia Cantore, who provided both assists, apologies. But realistically Italy don’t have players of the stature of former Ballon d’Or winner Ada Hegerberg, or winger Caroline Graham Hansen, or even Ingrid Engen or Guro Reiten or Frida Maanum, regulars in the latter stages of the Champions League.

But football is a collective sport, and here the collectivist side deservedly won. In the weakest of the four quarter-final match-ups, Italy were competent, and Norway were, at times, shambolic.

This, quite obviously, isn’t a new problem for Norway, who lost 8-0 to England at Euro 2022. Time and time again, they turn up at tournaments and appear to have arguably the strongest attacking quartet on paper, but simply don’t function as a unit. Granted, at World Cup 2023 and Euro 2025 they’ve got through the group stage. But on both occasions they’ve been fortunate to have been drawn into the weakest group, when the seeded side have been the hosts, rather than a genuine contender. As soon as they face a good side, in the first knockout round, they are eliminated — by Japan two years ago, and by Italy here.

Norway consistently fall down in three respects. First, they evidently lack quality defensive players. Second, the others don’t protect that defence effectively enough. Third, they don’t actually get the best out of their star attacking players either.

It is unclear to what extent this is down to managerial failings. This was Gemma Grainger’s first tournament in charge, and having inherited a side renowned for their poor organisation, it’s obvious this isn’t entirely her doing. But Grainger ended up with a fudge of a system tonight. Having made several changes for Norway’s final group game, a 4-3 win over Iceland, she realised that young Signe Gaupset had made herself undroppable, having scored twice and assisted the other two from the left wing.

This prompted three days of speculation about whether Grainger should start Gaupset or Hegerberg up front. One of the peculiarities of covering women’s football at an international tournament is that the Norwegian press are fascinated by what other nations’ journalists think about their side’s tactical dilemmas, to an extent far beyond any other nation. Therefore, journalists from across Europe, who had barely heard of Gaupset a week ago, were subjected to questions about which should start.

To us outsiders, this seemed the wrong question. Gaupset had starred from the left, so the player under threat was surely Reiten, who had been quiet in that position during the group stage. But can you drop Reiten? Apparently not. Grainger got around this problem by shifting Reiten to left-back. In some ways, as an energetic left-footer, that role seems perfect for Reiten. But she’s never looked comfortable there.

At least it meant Gaupset could start. She sometimes threatened to bulldoze through Italy’s backline, and came close to an extraordinary goal from 50 yards. It also meant Grainger didn’t have to leave out her captain, Hegerberg.

But Hegerberg’s performance was erratic. She looked almost scarily pumped up for the game. She (accidentally) bashed Girelli in the face when contesting an aerial duel on the halfway line. She miscued a couple of shots, and also missed her second penalty of the tournament. Having dragged the ball wide of the left-hand post in the opener against Switzerland, here she shot wide of the right-hand post. She did, granted, make amends with an equaliser.

Norway never looked settled, though. Whereas Italy quickly got themselves back into a compact block, Norway left attackers high up the pitch. The 20-year-old Gaupset had a somewhat relaxed approach to her defensive duties down the left, which left Reiten overrun. Better sides than Italy would have been out of sight by the hour mark. Manuela Giugliano, a talented little playmaker who is pressed out of games at the highest level, was able to collect the ball under little pressure, turn, have a glance around, and eventually prod it through the lines, almost at will.

The nature of the winning goal was entirely fitting. Cantore’s left-wing cross towards the far post was well-flighted, but it shouldn’t have caused quite so many problems. The fact it did was, in part, simply because Reiten is not a natural left-back, and looked unsure how to position herself, and who to pick up. As the ball was travelling towards Girelli’s head, you could perfectly detect the moment Reiten realised she was in the wrong position, and realised it was too late to do anything about it. But Reiten, quite literally, shouldn’t have been put in that position.

Tactically, Norway have never looked convincing in this tournament. Even from the outset, it seemed bizarre that Graham Hansen, the world’s best winger, was deployed as a No 10 with Maanum, a regular No 10 for her club, filling in unhappily on the flank. This is simply too baffling to be a managerial choice; one can only assume that Graham Hansen requested a more central role.

But she improved when returning to the wing at half-time of Norway’s opener, and looked brighter when starting there in the second game. Even then, there was an element of luck to Norway’s progression from the group — they were the beneficiaries of two own goals, and a lucky winner against Iceland when Graham Hansen’s cross bounced in off the far post. If they’d been drawn into Group C or Group D, they’d have been on their way home a few days ago.

Grainger was defiant after the game. “I’ll look back at this European Championship with real pride,” she said. “As a team, our objective was to get out of the group, and we achieved that.” But given a gentle quarter-final draw too, Norway should really have made the semi-finals.

Hegerberg, Reiten and Graham Hansen are all now 30, and we’re reaching the point where we can definitively say that Norway have wasted a genuine golden generation. Maybe there are simply too many gaps in the side for this Norway to be a realistic European Championship winner. The more realistic regret is that this brilliant group of attackers have never, at any stage, put together one truly great performance, or produced one brief spell of brilliant football, or even threatened to become the sum of their parts.

As always, great individuals are simply not enough.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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