{"id":706,"date":"2026-06-27T15:36:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T15:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=706"},"modified":"2026-06-27T15:36:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T15:36:07","slug":"france-supplies-the-spectacle-against-norway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=706","title":{"rendered":"France Supplies the Spectacle Against Norway"},"content":{"rendered":"
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You\u2019re reading The Sporting Scene<\/strong>, Louisa Thomas\u2019s weekly look at the world of sports.<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Shortly before the start of the France versus Norway group-stage World Cup match at Boston Stadium, word began to circulate that Erling Haaland, the hulking, long-locked Norwegian striker\u2014a man who codes less as \u201cprofessional soccer player\u201d than as \u201cbringer of vengeance and destruction\u201d\u2014would be sitting on the bench, along with nine other regular starters. Given the stakes of the match (the winner would take the top spot in Group I, insuring an easier path to the final), the moves made by Norway\u2019s manager, St\u00e5le Solbakken, came as a surprise. They also came as a disappointment to most of the sixty thousand people in the stands, who\u2019d paid ransom sums for tickets to see Haaland clash with France\u2019s Kylian Mbapp\u00e9, in the early rounds\u2019 most prominent matchup on paper.<\/p>\n

Read more The Coastal Mysteries of \u201cRomer\u00eda\u201d and \u201cRose of Nevada\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

But Solbakken defended the decision not to play his best as a \u201cno-brainer.\u201d The team was on a tight turnaround after a tough win over Senegal in hot, humid weather. Norway has a population roughly the size of South Carolina\u2019s; the team needs its few stars to be in peak condition if it hopes to go far. He\u2019d also apparently determined that the path awaiting the winner of Group I was hardly less treacherous than the runner-up\u2019s. Solbakken wasn\u2019t the first manager to look past his team\u2019s third match with an eye on the knockout rounds. (The previous night, after the U.S. men\u2019s team had already won its group, the U.S.M.N.T.\u2019s manager, Mauricio Pochettino, changed out nine players for a match against T\u00fcrkiye, which the U.S. lost.) \u201cWe have to be smart rather than greedy,\u201d Solbakken said before the game.<\/p>\n

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And so, without Haaland in front to bash the ball into the goal, or Martin \u00d8degaard, fresh from captaining his club team, Arsenal, to a Premier League title, taking on France would have to be a full-team effort. During warmups, while the French players lazily passed the ball between one another or popped it off the ground to gently juggle with their feet, the Norwegians, their red shirts bright against the grass, formed a tight circle and did vigorous plyometrics. In the stands, Norwegian fans in Viking caps pulled in synchrony as if rowing on an invisible longship.<\/p>\n

Twenty seconds into the match, though\u2014around the time that Mbapp\u00e9, sprung loose on the right side by a nifty pass, hammered the ball into the inside of the crossbar, as near a miss as a miss can be\u2014I had a hard time believing that any squad at full strength would have been able to stand up to a French team in full flight. Norway promised to be stiffer competition than France had faced so far, but they weren\u2019t\u2014well, they weren\u2019t France: champions in 2018, runners-up in 2022, one of the deepest and most astonishing collections of offensive talent the world has yet seen. This was Norway\u2019s first World Cup since 1998. \u201cThey\u2019re probably going to win against us,\u201d Haaland told Fox after the Senegal game, when asked about the prospect of playing France. \u201cThey\u2019re probably going to win the whole tournament.\u201d That might have been tongue-in-cheek. For at least the first half on Friday afternoon, though, it looked true.<\/p>\n

About four minutes into the match, Manu Kon\u00e9\u2014curiously alone at the top of Norway\u2019s box\u2014trapped a clearance attempt and rifled a shot on goal, which Norway\u2019s keeper, Egil Selvik, diving, punched away. Then, all of seven minutes into the game, Mbapp\u00e9 sent a pass to Ousmane Demb\u00e9l\u00e9, who dribbled, feinted, put the ball on his right foot, and scored. That was just the start for Demb\u00e9l\u00e9. A few minutes later, Mbapp\u00e9 stoically held the ball under pressure and then found Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 on a fast break, who fired another hard shot\u2014this time with his left foot\u2014into the goal\u2019s corner.<\/p>\n

Read more Scenes from La Canicule in Paris<\/a><\/p>\n

Rowing together? Never mind. Norway, up to that point, was, for better and worse, Selvik\u2019s one-man show. But I was still admiring the replay of Demb\u00e9l\u00e9\u2019s second goal on the jumbotron when a burst of cheers from the undaunted Norwegian fans shook me out of my admiration: Norway had just scored. Perhaps France had been too busy watching the replay, too, to notice Norway furiously flying up the field on the break. Hardly ten more minutes had passed before Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 scored again\u2014this time, cutting inside and stuttering his dribble and then, having befuddled the defense, rolling the ball right past it into an open corner of the goal. It was one of the quickest hat tricks you\u2019ll ever see.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Demb\u00e9l\u00e9, last year\u2019s winner of the Ballon d\u2019Or, awarded to the world\u2019s best player, is a supremely skillful, graceful player, with the uncanny ability to manipulate pace and ruthless finishing\u2014and yet, entering the game, he was an afterthought. Mbapp\u00e9, a compact, powerful player who moves across the top of the box with flawless grace, attracts the most attention on the World Cup stage. He is only twenty-seven years old; by the end of next week, he could eclipse Lionel Messi, who is thirty-nine, for the most goals at the World Cup. And he played excellently against Norway, with pretty assists on two of Demb\u00e9l\u00e9\u2019s goals and what seemed like half a dozen good scoring chances of his own. And yet France is so good that there have been other moments in this World Cup when neither player has looked like the best man on the team. The most exciting player might be Michael Olise, who dribbles and passes with playground flair. And as time expired, D\u00e9sir\u00e9 Dou\u00e9 headed in a fourth goal for the French side, as if to remind the world that he, too, had a claim to glory.<\/p>\n

The match seemed in danger of becoming a rout. Then Norway also harnessed some of its manic energy. At times, it seemed France were so focussed on their stylish attacks that they left themselves vulnerable to Norway\u2019s frantic end-to-end counters. During the second half, the crowd started to sing out for Haaland, who has scored fifty-nine goals in fifty-two games for Norway, and who had four in the first two games of this World Cup. But the match\u2014even one-sided\u2014was so loose, so open, so entertaining that I didn\u2019t dwell too long on missing him.<\/p>\n

That kind of freedom, that euphoric sense of possibility, isn\u2019t always a feeling I associate with soccer, a sport that sometimes seems predicated on frustration. (Its main rule: no hands.) And yet that appears to be the gift of this particular French team, and perhaps of this tournament. The World Cup is in a bit of a lull right now, as the chaos of the sprawling group stage, with its communal good vibes, gives way to the business end of the tournament. Will Solbakken regret the chance to test his best against the world\u2019s best before the intensity ratchets up? Perhaps. No matchup is notional from here on. \u2666<\/p>\n

Read more The Evolution of Messi<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With Erling Haaland watching from the bench, Ousmane Demb\u00e9l\u00e9 scored three times as Les Bleus won, 4\u20131, in a much-anticipated World Cup matchup, Louisa Thomas writes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-sporting-scene"],"yoast_head":"\nFrance Supplies the Spectacle Against Norway - City Relocation News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=706\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"France Supplies the Spectacle Against Norway - 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