By Nick Mulvenney
MIAMI, July 9 (Reuters) – The six decades since England’s lone World Cup triumph will come into sharper focus as they head towards Saturday’s quarter-final against a Norway team with one of the best strikers in the game but happy to embrace the underdog role.
Erling Haaland has been one of the stars of the tournament with his seven goals taking Norway into uncharted territory at their first World Cup for 28 years — his double against Brazil in the last 16 already the stuff of internet memes.
England will think they have more overall quality and are far more familiar with this stage of major tournaments, having reached the quarter-finals or better at three World Cups and two European Championships in the last eight years.
The 1966 World Cup triumph on home soil remains their only major international title, however, and expectations back home reach fever pitch every time they make the business end of a tournament.
Norway have clearly decided that this could work to their advantage with midfielder Kristian Thorstvedt on Thursday saying his team “don’t have much to lose” and Haaland looking to enlist the media to help ramp up the pressure on England.
“I think there are some clear favourites out there, England is one of them, so I think all of you should put every single pressure on the English lads,” the 25-year-old English-born striker told reporters with a grin.
The charismatic Haaland is very much a known quantity to Saturday’s opposition after four years in the Premier League and has five current and former clubmates in the England squad.
“We’ll treat them with the same respect we show every opponent,” said one of them, defender John Stones.
“We know what they’ve got, especially with Erling (but) we’ve put in some great defensive performances so far.”
NORWAY’S TIGHT BOND BRINGS RESULTS
Norway’s run to the last eight has been about more than Haaland and playmaker Martin Odegaard, however, with a tight bond in the squad manifesting itself in their performances.
“There’s very little negative energy in the group,” midfielder Morten Thorsby said. “We’ve been together a long time, and we have a very good time together.”
England showed that they too have developed a strong team spirit when, despite being reduced to 10 men, they beat co-hosts Mexico in the last 16 with a backs-against-the-wall win rated by many as the country’s finest at a World Cup.
The dramatic victory took its toll, however, with Jarell Quansah handed a two-match ban for his red card, leaving coach Thomas Tuchel pondering a paucity of options at right back.
In captain Harry Kane, though, England have their own world-class striker looking to add to his tournament tally of six goals at Miami Stadium, while midfielder Jude Bellingham has really come into his own at this World Cup.
“They have a good collective,” Thorstvedt said of England. “But we have individual players who can decide the big moments, and I feel that’s what top-level football is.
“When two good teams meet, it often becomes an even match, and then it’s really those moments that decide it.”
(Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Ken Ferris)
