Norway

Norway have not been to a World Cup since France 1998. The country missed seven consecutive tournaments, suffered playoff heartbreak in 2022 against Serbia, and watched the football generation that included Haaland and Ødegaard get closer to peak with each missed cycle. The 2025-26 qualifying campaign ended the drought emphatically: eight wins from eight, 37 goals scored, four conceded, and a UEFA qualifying record that only Spain matched. The pre-tournament hype is fair. Norway are unmistakably the most dangerous unseeded team in the field.

The tactical model is unambiguous and not particularly subtle. Solbakken’s 4-3-3 fixes Haaland centrally as the penalty-area destination; Ødegaard operates from the left half-space; Antonio Nusa, Oscar Bobb, Strand Larsen or Sørloth provide the wide running and crossing. Sander Berge and Patrick Berg screen the midfield; Julian Ryerson is one of Europe’s most tactically intelligent right-backs. The defence is the area where Norway look unmistakably below the world-class level — Kristoffer Ajer, Leo Skiri Østigård, Torbjørn Heggem — but the structure Solbakken has installed is enough to limit the goals-against tally against most international opponents.

The schedule could not have been kinder: Iraq first (a clear three-point fixture), Senegal second (the swing match), France last in Boston (where Norway can either tie up the group or rest legs depending on the matchday-2 outcome). The realistic path is six points from Iraq and Senegal, qualification clinched, France treated as a free-look matchday 3 with rotation. The ceiling is genuinely the quarter-finals: with Haaland and Ødegaard at their best, Norway are not significantly weaker than England or Portugal, and the round-of-16 draw against a Group L or H third-placer favours them. The floor — Iraq win, Senegal loss, France defeat — is real but unlikely. Most likely outcome: through as runners-up, a winnable round of 16, and then the question of whether Haaland’s first knockout World Cup match becomes a coronation or a sobering education.

Norway’s last World Cup was in France in 1998, where they upset Brazil 2-1 in Marseille and reached the round of 16 before falling to Italy. Between then and now, Norway missed seven consecutive World Cups, four Euros (until 2024-25, also missed), and watched neighbours Denmark and Sweden lap them in tournament football. The drought ended in November 2025 in style: eight matches, eight wins, 37 goals scored, four conceded, top of UEFA qualifying Group I and into the World Cup with games to spare. They are, on the qualifying numbers alone, the best Norwegian football team ever assembled.

The reason is partly luck — having Erling Haaland and Martin Ødegaard in the same generation is unrepeatable — and partly the patient work of Ståle Solbakken, now in his fifth full year as national team manager. The framework is a 4-3-3 built around Haaland’s penalty-area dominance and Ødegaard’s left-half-space orchestration. Sander Berge (Fulham) anchors midfield; Antonio Nusa (Leipzig) and either Oscar Bobb (Manchester City) or Strand Larsen (Wolves) supply the wide running and crossing. The defensive numbers in qualifying (4 goals conceded in 8) flatter a back line that was not regularly tested by elite opposition — but Solbakken’s mid-block defending and Julian Ryerson’s tactical intelligence at right-back have given Norway competitive defensive structure for the first time in a decade.

The squad announcement on 21 May 2026 produced no genuine surprises. Three goalkeepers — Ørjan Nyland (Sevilla), Egil Selvik (Watford), Sander Tangvik (Hamburg) — none of whom regularly start in the Premier League/Bundesliga top flight. The defence leans on Kristoffer Ajer (Brentford), Leo Skiri Østigård (Genoa) and Torbjørn Heggem (Bologna). The forward line is the headline: Haaland and Sørloth as a double-pivot of devastating finishers, with Nusa, Bobb, Strand Larsen and Thelo Aasgaard (Rangers) providing rotation. No genuine experiment was made; this is the squad Solbakken trusted to qualify and the one he trusts to perform.

The group draw rewards Norway’s lack of tournament miles with a forgiving opener (Iraq), a swing fixture (Senegal), and a marquee finale against France in Boston that could decide group winner — or for Norway, simply confirm progression. The ceiling is genuinely the semi-finals: with Haaland and Ødegaard, an in-form Norway is not significantly weaker than England or Portugal, and the new 48-team format opens up softer round-of-16 matchups. The floor is a Sweden-2018-style group exit if the defence is exposed early. Most likely outcome: through as runners-up, into a top-half-of-the-bracket round-of-16 against a Group L or H team, and one knockout win away from matching the country’s 1998 best-ever finish. Either way, after 28 years away, Norway are no longer the World Cup’s most conspicuous absence. They might be its most dangerous returner.

Ståle Solbakken has been the Norway head coach since 3 December 2020 — well over five years and 60+ matches — and is the first manager to take the country to a World Cup since Egil Olsen in 1998. The drought he ended was nearly three decades long. He did it by winning all eight of his qualifying matches, scoring 37 goals in the process. Only Spain matched that attacking output across European qualifying. It is the highest-quality work of his managerial career, and quite possibly the most efficient World Cup qualifying campaign any Norway team has ever produced.

His path to the national-team job was long and unmistakably his own. Born in Kongsvinger in 1968, Solbakken’s playing career was cut short in 2001 when he suffered cardiac arrest during training with Wimbledon FC, a medical emergency that effectively ended his career as a midfielder. He retired and turned to coaching at second-tier HamKam in 2002, won immediate promotion, took Norway’s Manager of the Year award in 2004, and from there moved to FC Copenhagen — the club that would define his career. Across two stints (2006-2011, 2013-2020) he won eight Danish Superliga titles, took Copenhagen to a Champions League round of 16 (a first for any Danish club), and built the largest body of trophy work by any Norwegian manager in modern history.

His non-Copenhagen ventures were the rougher chapters. A single season at 1. FC Köln in 2011-12 ended in relegation. A six-month stint at Wolverhampton Wanderers in 2012-13 ended in January after a 2-1 FA Cup defeat to non-league Luton Town. Both stints reinforced his subsequent commitment to environments he could control end-to-end — which is why his second Copenhagen tenure delivered the best work of his career and why his Norway job is recognisably built on Copenhagen principles: clear roles, vertical attacking patterns, structural defending in mid-blocks.

The 2026 World Cup is Solbakken’s first as a head coach. The squad he announced on 21 May confirmed continuity over experimentation — the qualifying spine in midfield and attack is intact, with only injuries and form determining the bench rotations. He has been explicit in press conferences that his single tactical brief is to get the best out of Haaland (the highest-ceiling striker in tournament football) and Ødegaard (an underrated playmaker who consistently outperforms his Norway numbers when surrounded by enough quality). A round-of-16 appearance would match Norway’s all-time best from 1998; a quarter-final would be the highest finish in Norwegian history. He turns 58 in February 2026 and has hinted privately that the 2028 Euros may be his stopping point. This is the campaign that will define everything he built.