Who are ya?

Tore Reginiussen, Tom Høgli, Morten M. Skjønsberg and Atle Roar Haaland. You’ll be forgiven if you can’t put a face to any of these names, but these are apparently four of Norway’s six best defenders, if we are to believe Åge Hareide, our coach.

Monday night Vålerenga played Strømsgodset in a clash of the 7th (SIF) and 10th (VIF) placed teams in the Norwegian league. Strømsgodset won 2-1, but the game could’ve easily gone either way. What is undoubtedly the case is that the game will never be remembered as a classic.

Why is this game relevant? It involved 4/7 players selected to play midfield for Norway in our next game. That’s 57.1 % of our midfield playing in a dreary midtable clash in what is arguably not one of the best 15 leagues in Europe. As an aside, I would say England, Italy, Spain, Germany, France, Portugal, Holland, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, Denmark and Greece are definitely better, and Belgium, Scotland, Sweden, Serbia and Austria and probably Switzerland, Romania, Bulgaria and Poland are of similar quality to the Norwegian league, though some of these I know very little about.

Up front, Hareide has preferred party-boy Steffen Iversen to our recent export to Dutch football Tarek Elyounoussi. This has made the headlines, which is understandable, as Tarek is viewed as the future of the Norwegian front line. However, the bigger story should be the lack of quality players throughout the squad, and the preferrence given to some big city players (Daniel Fredheim Holm particularly, but recently Kristoffer Hæstad as well) who have not shown the attitude or consistent quality necessary to play with the flag on their chests.

I have argued in the past that Åge Hareide remains our national team coach because of a dire lack of quality options. Unfortunately the same can be said for a lot of our national team players.

Explore posts in the same categories: My opinion

Tags: Atle Roar Haaland, Åge Hareide, Daniel Fredheim Holm, Fredrik Winsnes, Kristoffer Hæstad, Martin Andresen, Morten M. Skjønsberg, Steffen Iversen, Strømsgodset, Tarek Elyounoussi, Tom Høgli, Tore Reginiussen, Tromsø, Vålerenga

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