Marcus Speller

exactly and that's the biggest argument probably for expanding it and making it easier for African teams for Egypt particularly well I mean Egypt have been the best team in Africa a lot and still not done anything in the World Cup and they literally won their first game this year so the imbalance is clearly obvious yeah no that's fair that's fair well they got it but Norway beat Senegal 3-2 talking of African teams Senegal they imploded as well I know and they're a decent side again it's just it's a really tough draw for them they still have a slight chance of going through

and oh and they had a chance to equalise right at the death I mean it was a tough one to take I don't think it was a glaring miss but it was too little too late ultimately but what about Norway though you talk about teams who've never qualified I mean the first time they've qualified since 98 there was a lot of chat about this Norwegian side and thinking are they going to be the side who everybody talks about and oh dark horse and all that kind of thing and then they turn up and don't do it well they are doing it Jim they've scored seven goals in their first two games Erling Haaland's got four that second finish

big target man very strong physically stronger than everyone he's up against so it's easy for him because he can just brush people aside there's so much more to his game than that oh definitely so much more his mobility is incredible he missed a sitter he did miss a sitter well goalkeepers not learn now yeah he snatched like that though he could have taken an extra time I don't know but goalkeepers like it's okay to play long against Norway because it means you're not gonna I mean you just have to get rid of it he just the way he bears down on a keeper like I say he's like something out of a quiet place you know like it's just he's insane it was the only mad thing is he didn't actually put it in

But if you look, again, you look at the side though, there's a few similar names but it's not a star-studded line-up.

Obviously, Odegaard and Haaland are the two.

You've got Sour as well.

He is, yeah.

And Sander Berger, I've obviously watched a lot at Fulham this year.

But it is Starla Solbakken who's done very well in moulding this team and getting the best out of them.

You know, the fact that Sorlott is, at any other time, he's front and centre for Norway.

I named him in there and I'm saying that Solbakken has done incredibly well to kind of you know create this and curate it in a way that is getting the best out of Haaland of course but Odegaard and so on and so forth because there is on the odd occasion where a nation like Norway they have a crop of players where maybe they're slightly mismanaged or it's not quite there but they're at the World Cup they qualified with aplomb they've won the first two games they're into the knockouts

Even Mendy for the first goal.

Yeah, you would.

And, you know, it would go down to goal difference and all that kind of stuff.

I mean, they're on minus three.

I think, you know... They need to whoop Iraq, maybe.

A 3-0 victory, you'd expect them to go through 2-0, maybe.

So I think that would be a tasty one.

That's where the head-to-head, obviously, you know, because it would be against those remaining teams.

So we shall see.