Норвегийн шигшээ баг Дэлхийн аваргын шөвгийн наймд шалгарч, Бразилийг буулган авсан нь хөлбөмбөгийн ертөнцийг гайхшруулсан үйл явдал боллоо.
Тоглолтын туршид Норвегийн хамгаалалт болон хаалгач Оржан Нюландын ур чадвар Бразилийн довтолгоог зогсоож байв. Нюланд Бруно Гимарайншийн торгуулийн цохилтыг хааж, багтаа итгэл нэмсэн бол Эрлинг Холанд 79 дэх минут болон 90 дэх минутад Андреас Шелдерупын дамжуулалтаар хоёр гоол оруулснаар тоглолтын хувь заяаг шийдвэрлэжээ. Ялангуяа, Холанд тоглолтын төгсгөлд хамгаалагч Габриэлийг хуурч, Данилогийн хөл завсраар хийсэн гоол нь түүний онцгой авьяасыг дахин нотлов.
Норвегийн дасгалжуулагч Стале Сольбаккен багийн тэвчээртэй тоглолт болон Холандын гоол оруулах гайхалтай чадвар ялалтад хүргэснийг онцолсон юм. Бразилийн бүрэлдэхүүнд Неймар сэлгээнээс орж ирэн торгуулийн цохилтоор нэр төрийн гоол оруулсан ч Норвегийн “шинэ үеийн викингүүд” шөвгийн наймд өрсөлдөх эрхээ авлаа.
Энэ ялалтын дараа Норвеги улс цаашид Аргентин эсвэл Францын шигшээ багтай таарах магадлалтай байна. Холанд Дэлхийн аваргад оролцож буй шилдэг тоглогчидтой өрсөлдөхөд бэлэн байгаагаа харуулж, түүний гоолын цуврал үргэлжилсээр байна.
Дэлгэрэнгүй эх сурвалжийг харах
Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
This is not the most promising start to a written story but the consensus at the MetLife Stadium on Sunday evening was that it was very hard to explain what more than 80,000 people had just witnessed.
Some, including the main protagonist, described it as beyond their dreams, while others said they could not put it into words at all. Great.
“I had dreamed of taking Norway to the World Cup but I couldn’t have dreamt of beating Brazil,” said Erling Haaland, having done just that. “I need to pinch myself sometimes.”
Perhaps Andreas Schjelderup can help. After all, he provided the assists for Haaland’s sixth and seventh goals at this tournament (and his 61st and 62nd for Norway, in only 54 appearances).
“I’m lost for words, we’re all lost for words,” the Benfica winger said. “I think we’re just happy he’s Norwegian and that he is playing for us.”
As opposed to the land of his birth, Andreas?
Perhaps the best way to do it is to think about the pictures.
In the first, Haaland is intently watching the ball arrow into the bottom corner of Brazil’s net. He looks like his hips are six feet off the ground but he is perfectly balanced, knees high, torso twisted and left arm out for leverage. He is right, it is hard to think of a better way to explain pure athleticism.
Just behind the Norwegian striker, a couple of feet lower, half a second slower and twisting, out of control, on his way to the ground, is Brazil defender Gabriel, a brilliant player and athlete in his own right, but emphatically second best at this moment of crisis.
Erling Haaland heads in his first against Brazil (Al Bello/Getty Images)
Their contest, as it so often has when they have met in the Premier League for their clubs, was meant to be the defining battle. Gabriel had probably got the better of it over the season, as Arsenal had beaten Manchester City to the league title.
If we let this picture roll a few frames, we see Haaland wheeling away to take the acclaim of his teammates, Norway’s fans in the ground, those watching at home and sports fans around the world, who recognise greatness when they see it.
But we also seeGabriel and Brazil goalkeeper Allison Becker on the ground, like skittles.For 79 minutes, they had stood up to the Viking marauder’s raids. Becker had made one straightforward stop from him and Gabriel had kept Haaland on the closest of leashes.
There had been a couple bouts of judo between them but Norway’s talisman had touched the ball only 19 times in total. But that is the thing with Haaland: 20 was plenty.
Over the full game, he had 30 touches — the same number as Alexander Sorloth, who was taken off at half-time because he was not making much impact. These things are very relative.
Three of those touches came in the 90th minute, when Haaland received a simple pass from the left. He was a few yards outside the box. He took one touch to control it, another to move the ball onto his left foot and a third to thread it through Danilo’s legs and into the same corner of Brazil’s net as his header.
If the header was the basketball equivalent of a poster dunk over one of the world’s great rim protectors, this was a dagger from the logo. Gabriel could only watch this one and despair.
Haaland smashes in his second goal (Al Bello/Getty Images)
Having shown the full range of his assassin’s repertoire with his finishes, he then gave us a very different celebration. The first was a mad bundle by the corner flag; this one had shades of Eric Cantona’s slow-motion pirouette after chipping Sunderland’s Lionel Perez at Old Trafford in 1996. Haaland’s version was even colder — his face barely flickered.
Maybe he really could not believe what he is doing to the world’s best defenders at this tournament. The numbers are ridiculous. His two goals in this game had a combined xG (expected goals) of 0.39. His seven this tournament have a combined xG of just over four.
The unlikeliness of what he is doing are reflected in the numbers of his teammates, too. Schjelderup’s expected-assists stat for this game was 0.19. “You can just cross the ball or pass to him blindly and he will score,” he explained.
The real surprise, perhaps, is why Norway did not do more crossing and passing blindly to Haaland. But playing slow and steady, to tire Brazil and thwart their counter-attacks, was the plan.
“We wanted to keep the ball and wait for the right opening,” Norway manager Stale Solbakken told reporters after the game. “We knew how dangerous they were, so we had to keep the ball, have long attacks and play and play until they tired. That’s when we had to go for the kill.”
In other words, get the ball to Erling.
“He is the best goalscorer in the world,” said Solbakken. “He played a very good game, very active, very physical. He made it difficult for their centre backs.
“But we have to be honest that the game could have gone either way. We had a match-winner up front in Erling and another match-winner in Orjan (Nyland) in goal. We needed both.”
Indeed they did. If it was not for Haaland’s late, telling touches, this would have been one of the easiest “Superior Player of the Match” decisions for the voters at home. The stats say Nyland made four saves but they were all brilliant, including one from Bruno Guimaraes’ first-half penalty.
The 35-year-old goalkeeper, who hardly played for his club side Sevilla last season, also earns credits for laughing at Neymar when the he came off the bench to score Brazil’s consolation goal from the spot and then gave Nyland a mouthful of abuse. Not the time nor the place.
It is fair to say he would not have tried that on with Haaland. One, because the striker is, as Schjelderup put it “a monster”, but also because it would have heaped embarrassment on what was already a chastening defeat for the five-time World Cup champions.
Vinicius Junior, Brazil’s best player on Sunday and throughout this World Cup, knows game when he sees it. He stopped in the mixed zone to warmly congratulate Haaland on writing another chapter in his growing saga.
What will the next one be?
Having not been to a World Cup for 28 years — Norway were ranked 50th in the world only two years ago — they are now in the last eight, with a date against xx. Beyond them? Argentina? And them? France.
Or, to put it another way, potential one-on-one contests with Harry Kane, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe, with a Golden Boot for the last man standing.
