Solbakken's No-Brainer Decision After Norway's 4-1 Loss to France
Stale Solbakken walked into the mixed zone in Boston with a 4-1 defeat to France hanging over him and barely a flicker of regret on his face. The scoreline stung, the spectacle disappointed thousands of travelling Norwegians, but in his mind the decision had already been won long before kick-off.
This, he insisted, was the easy part.
Norway’s head coach had ripped up his winning team from the 3-2 thriller against Senegal, making 10 changes and leaving both Erling Haaland and Martin Odegaard on the bench for the full 90 minutes. No late cameo. No box-office duel with Kylian Mbappe. No consolation for those who had paid heavily and flown even further to see their stars.
The explanation, though, was blunt.
“This is simple,” Solbakken said. After Senegal, the data and the eye test told the same story: his players were running on fumes. “There were five or six who were very affected. After 80 minutes of play, the entire defence line and one or two midfielders were very affected.”
Norway had already booked their place in the knockout rounds. A win over France would have brought more than just pride: top spot in the group and a round of 32 tie against Sweden instead of Ivory Coast. Yet the coaching staff looked at the calendar, not the bracket.
From Senegal to France, Norway had the shortest turnaround window of any side in their section. Heavy legs, tight muscles, and medical reports all pointed in the same direction. The physios collected urine samples, the numbers came back, and the red flags went up.
“It was a no-brainer,” Solbakken said. Not just his call, he stressed, but a joint verdict. “Both on my part and the physio and medical team — and from some players themselves. They all said it would be difficult for them and to be able to train.”
He could have chased the prestige of beating France with his strongest XI, maybe even produced a “decent match”, as he put it. But the risk was obvious: burn out key players now, pay the price on Tuesday.
“Bear in mind we might not have won,” he said. “What about the next game then?”
Haaland vs Mbappe denied – by design
In the stands, the mood was different. Boston had been braced for a marquee night: Haaland on one side, Mbappe on the other, a clash of global superstars on American soil. A large Norwegian following had travelled at great expense to witness exactly that.
They didn’t get it.
Solbakken knew what he had taken away from them, and he didn’t pretend otherwise. “The support has been very good and they want to see Erling and Martin,” he admitted. “That is the only reason you can feel something about the way we lined up today.”
He framed the choice as a trade-off. One night of glamour, or a better shot at several more nights that matter.
“Hopefully because of that we can give them some good summer nights in the weeks ahead,” he said. Norway, he argued, has outgrown the role of plucky entertainers.
“We don’t need to be the naive country who just play for fun. We are here to proceed as long as we can and I have to make the decisions to do that. I wouldn’t want to sit on the plane back knowing we didn’t do our best to go as far as possible.”
He called it “an easy decision. Not even up for discussion.”
There were, he revealed, only narrow scenarios in which Haaland and Odegaard would have appeared at all. “It would have had to be after the last hydration break,” he said. Only if the game state opened a path to their target — top spot without overloading the stars — would he have broken the glass.
That moment never came.
France take first, Norway take the long road
On the other side, France embraced a very different calculation. Assistant coach Guy Stephan underlined how important first place was to them, not just in terms of opponent but logistics. Win the group, and you earn a short 45-minute hop to New York. Finish second, and you face a roughly four-hour flight to Dallas.
Norway now get the long haul.
They also get fewer hours to recover. Only three days separate this defeat and Tuesday’s round of 32 clash, a schedule some believe tilts the balance towards Ivory Coast, who punched their ticket by beating Curacao.
Solbakken waved that concern away — precisely because of the choices he made in Boston. “Not now because we did what we did today,” he said. Rested legs, preserved minutes, and one less bruising battle for his mainstays were all part of the calculation.
“You have to take that into consideration,” he added, pointing to the tight turnaround, train trips, hotel changes, and a rest day lost in transit. That, he said, sat at the heart of the rotation call.
The scoreboard told one story at full-time: France rampant, Norway second best. Solbakken is betting that in a few days’ time, in a different city and a different phase of the tournament, the real verdict on this “no-brainer” will arrive — not on a single night in Boston, but in how long Norway manage to stay alive.
