“I apologized to Gattuso.” This is what Ståle Solbakken says after the last chapter was written about the adventurous journey to a World Cup ticket. Of course, it was not the four goals in thirty minutes that the Norwegian national team coach apologized for, nor that Norway denied one of the world’s biggest football nations the World Cup ticket with a humiliating 7-1 loss in total in two games in the qualifiers. The apology came because 28 years of accumulated frustration were unleashed in the celebration.
“It went a bit over all boot shafts there. When Jørgen Strand Larsen scores there, Are Hokstad (the national team’s team manager) sits and cries, Frode Grodås sobs and everyone runs around. There were scenes you might not have thought you would get to see on a football leg, it came from Solbakken to NRK.
READ: Media giant BBC praises Norway: “To the World Cup in style!”
And the response of the coach who was behind Italy’s fall at the San Siro?
“He said it was understandable,” Solbakken said.
Gattuso became world champion with Italy in 2006, so the hard-nosed understands well-deserved football euphoria when he sees it. Respect.
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