{"id":545452,"date":"2026-07-12T05:25:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T05:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/545452\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T05:25:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T05:25:07","slug":"norway-boss-says-overhead-wire-deserves-england-assist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/545452\/","title":{"rendered":"Norway boss says overhead wire deserves England &#8216;assist&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Norway boss Stale Solbakken believes the overhead wires deserve an assist for England&#8217;s equaliser as the ball dropped down &#8220;straight from heaven&#8221; despite FIFA\u2019s ball sensor showing no contact.<\/p>\n<p>Jude Bellingham\u2019s brace secured a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rte.ie\/sport\/world-cup-2026\/2026\/0711\/1582886-bellingham-brace-sees-england-edge-norway-to-reach-semis\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">2-1 quarter-final victory<\/a> that went to extra-time in hot and humid Miami, where Andreas Schjelderup\u2019s cross-shot had given the Scandinavians the lead.<\/p>\n<p>Bellingham cancelled out the opener with a smart finish in first-half stoppage-time, with England breaking quickly after Orjan Nyland\u2019s goal kick was cut out.<\/p>\n<p>The ball appeared to hit one of the overhead TV cables, but FIFA says the chip in the ball did not record anything.<\/p>\n<p>A statement from the governing body read: &#8220;Before England\u2019s goal in minute 45+2 against Norway, the sensor in the connected ball showed no peak in the &#8216;heartbeat of the ball\u2019 when in the air, and therefore no evidence that the ball touched the overhead wire and changed the movement of the ball.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p alt=\"2026 World Cup: Ball cable\" data-embed=\"comcast-player\" data-guid=\"epic-mpx-manual-34985\" data-id=\"cE3whxbmx4wP\" data-thumbnail=\"https:\/\/www.rte.ie\/images\/0024aea9-900.jpg\">\n<p>Solbakken was asked at the start of the post-match press conference whether the camera wire deserved an assist for the leveller, with the Norway boss saying: &#8220;Yeah, it probably will.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That was unlucky for us. The ball fell straight down from the sky, so it changed its direction.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It became a misunderstanding among our players and it was in a bad moment for us, but we can\u2019t do anything about that.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don\u2019t think we will play the game again, so that\u2019s how it is.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Solbakken did not see the ball hit the wire but many on the Norwegian bench did, even if it was not picked up by FIFA.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I can\u2019t say anything about that because FIFA,&#8221; he said. If there\u2019s no been no sound or there has been no (reading) in the chip, what can I say against that?<\/p>\n<p alt=\"2026 World Cup: Norway 1-2 England full-time scenes\" data-embed=\"comcast-player\" data-guid=\"epic-mpx-manual-34984\" data-id=\"0XEDUtkVwUn0\" data-thumbnail=\"https:\/\/www.rte.ie\/images\/0024aea0-900.jpg\">\n<p>&#8220;But the ball drops down straight from heaven says everyone, including Orjan, who is the goalie, including the guy who is going to receive the ball.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I saw another way just then, so I wonder also what happened. I think it\u2019s pretty clear that it did and it was a strange thing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It was a painful end to a summer to treasure for Norway, who marked their first World Cup since 1998 by going deeper in a major tournament than ever before.<\/p>\n<p>Put to Solbakken that everyone in Norway will talk about the wire incident until death, he said: &#8220;I hope we can think about and talk about other things. That\u2019s my sincere hope.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I hope that this will not be the story about this team. It shouldn\u2019t be.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Norway boss Stale Solbakken believes the overhead wires deserve an assist for England&#8217;s equaliser as the ball dropped&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545453,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-545452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}