Norwegian fall (2 Viewers)

Zambrotta

Zambrotta

Senior Member
#1
Nov 16, 2001
2,421
#1
Ten years ago Norway was dominating in England. Solskjaer was United's supersub, Tore André Flo was a star in Chelsea . One year there was 23 norwegians in Premier League. No other country was close to having that many players. I believe the country that came closest had less than 10. The neighbours Sweden had one and Denmark couldn't have had more than three or four.
Now that Riise has left Liverpool I can't think of a single Norwegian in the Premier league. Well Carew is perhaps still playing somewhere. Carew who was compared to Zlatan in the early 2000's. But look what a different path they have taken. It can also be compared to how swedish and norwegian national team football has gone. Sweden has qualified to every championship since 2000. Norway made it to Belgium/Holland. After that the have missed them all, big time.

Considering the size of the country it is not that surprising they're not making it to the world cup or producing world class players. More surprising is actually that they managed to produce that many players to become premier league. 23 players is a complete NT squad.
What happened then and what happened after? What made them so good in the late 90's and where has all that talent gone now?
 

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Martin

Martin

Senior Member
#2
Dec 31, 2000
56,913
#2
I think "dominating" is a fairly big exaggeration. First of all there were many fewer foreign players in the EPL at the time, but most importantly the Norwegian players were never the stars of the league. AND the fact that English clubs are much higher standard today than they were back then.
 
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Zambrotta

Zambrotta

Senior Member
Thread Starter #5
Nov 16, 2001
2,421
  • Thread Starter
    • Thread Starter #5
    Martin said:
    I think "dominating" is a fairly big exaggeration. First of all there were many fewer foreign players in the EPL at the time, but most importantly the Norwegian players were never the stars of the league. AND the fact that English clubs are much higher standard today than they were back then.
    Click to expand...

    Counting from this list it was actually 25 players in 1999.
    http://sportsbooks.xanga.com/674434934/list-of-norwegian-players-in-the-english-premier-league/

    Although Norwegians never were stars it's a surprising figure. Sweden had ended third in the world cup five years before and Denmark played brilliant in the World Cup just one year before. Still the were no way near. Sure, the norwegians were not the biggest stars but we are talking about six times as many players compared to their neighbours.
     
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