MIAMI, July 8 (Reuters) – Norway coach Stale \u2060Solbakken dismissed suggestions that having Premier League-based players gives his team an advantage against England in their World \u2060Cup quarter-final, cheekily pointing out that their opponents’ star performers actually play elsewhere.<\/p>\n
Norway boast Manchester City striker Erling \u200cHaaland and Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard among their Premier League contingent, but Solbakken noted that England’s top two goalscorers ply their trade in LaLiga and the Bundesliga.<\/p>\n
While Bayern Munich striker Harry Kane is in the running for another World Cup Golden Boot with six goals so far, midfielder Jude Bellingham has also \u200bchipped in with four goals — including two in England’s 3-2 win over Mexico \u2060in the last 16.<\/p>\n
“I don’t know if it’s \u2060favourable. Some of the players have obviously played against many of the English players,” Solbakken told reporters on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
“The two \u2060best \u200cEnglish players may not be playing in the Premier League. They’re playing in Spain and Germany, so you can also take it that way.”<\/p>\n
CONFIDENCE BOOST<\/p>\n
Solbakken acknowledged that Norway’s stunning upset of Brazil in the last 16 to advance to the \u2060quarter-finals for the first time had boosted confidence, but warned against getting \u200bcarried away.<\/p>\n
“I think it gave (us) more confidence, \u200cbut I think that… Every game lives its own life,” Solbakken said.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think that any other team \u2060we have met so \u200bfar in this World Cup has underestimated us. Every team does their analysis, a lot of analysis, so there are no secrets. That goes for this game as well.”<\/p>\n
Solbakken had said earlier this week that some players were feeling under the weather but clarified that everyone was now \u2060ready to play.<\/p>\n
“It’s right that Odegaard was sick. It’s his uncle (Thomas) who \u200bis a physio, he is sick. It’s not Martin,” he said.<\/p>\n
“So everything is fine, every player is fine. There’s no sickness among the players. There’s been one or two in the staff.”<\/p>\n
HAALAND’S LEADERSHIP<\/p>\n
The coach praised Haaland’s leadership qualities, describing him as “a great leader on \u2060and off the pitch”, with the striker also in the running for the Golden Boot with seven goals — one behind Argentina’s Lionel Messi.<\/p>\n
“He’s one of the boys. He has been together with these boys from under-16, 17 and 18,” the coach said.<\/p>\n
“Many of them have been together their whole life, so they’re really enjoying this journey as well.”<\/p>\n
On Odegaard’s captaincy, Solbakken suggested the Arsenal midfielder \u200bshoulders greater responsibility with his national team than at club level.<\/p>\n
“He perhaps has a little \u2060bit more free role in our team,” he explained.<\/p>\n
“Maybe when he plays with Arsenal, he has equal players with the same experience \u200bwith Declan Rice and (Martin) Zubimendi. They can share it a little bit. Obviously, \u200cwe maybe put a little bit more on his shoulders.<\/p>\n
“Together with \u200bErling, he has been one of our best players for the long term and a great captain, also when times were a little bit tougher than it is now.”<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Miami;Editing by Christian Radnedge)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI, July 8 (Reuters) – Norway coach Stale \u2060Solbakken dismissed suggestions that having Premier League-based players gives his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":787785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,13201,596,85,21418],"class_list":["post-787784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fifa","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=787784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/787785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}