World Cup 2022 (Soccer)

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      Poland Refused to Play Russia Once. It May Have to Do So Again.

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      Poland’s stars cornered FIFA by threatening to boycott a World Cup qualifier. Now, as Russia appeals the decision, Robert Lewandowski, Wojciech Szczesny and their teammates may have to double down.One by one, late on a Friday evening, Robert Lewandowski called his Poland teammates. They were scattered across Europe, and most of them were busily preparing for club games that weekend, but his question could not wait.They had all seen the footage emerging from Ukraine: Russian tanks rolling across the border, Russian artillery bombarding cities and towns, Ukrainian refugees flooding out of the country, hundreds of thousands of them seeking shelter in Poland.In a matter of weeks, Poland was scheduled to face Russia in a crucial World Cup qualifier. Lewandowski had known immediately, once the invasion of Ukraine had begun, that he did not want the game in late March to go ahead. He had already called the president of the Polish soccer federation and made that clear. Now he wanted to know how his teammates felt.Without exception, the answer was emphatic. Lewandowski did not, he said in an interview, “have to convince anyone.” The conversation he had with Wojciech Szczesny, the Juventus goalkeeper who has been one of Lewandowski’s Poland teammates for more than a decade, was typical. “I just said, ‘I’m not playing the game,’” Szczesny said. “That was how he felt, too. We all said the same thing.”After finishing his calls late on that February night, Lewandowski — the Poland captain and, by some distance, his country’s most high-profile athlete — relayed his conversations to executives at the federation. The players, he said, were unanimous: They would not take the field against Russia. It did not matter if the game was held on neutral territory or if Russia played it under a neutral flag.It did not even matter to them if Poland was thrown out of the World Cup as a result. “We didn’t think about the consequences or whether we might be punished,” Szczesny said. “We only cared about the outcome. We were prepared to forfeit the game. We were not going to play.”The federation readily acceded to the players’ decision. They told Lewandowski they would relay a message to FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, the next morning to inform the organization of the Polish position. “We said that on Saturday we would announce there would be no games at all with Russia,” Jakub Kwiatkowski, the general manager of the Polish men’s national team, told the BBC.Lewandowski said Poland’s players were united in their refusal to play Russia.Albert Gea/ReutersThe move seemed to force FIFA’s hand. The organization had, for much of the first week of the invasion, been studiously quiet on the subject of whether Russia — or any of its club teams — would be allowed to continue to play either in World Cup qualifying or in competitions under the auspices of UEFA, European soccer’s governing body.The Polish authorities had been trying for several days to force FIFA to commit to a position. They had already sent the governing body two letters: one in which it confirmed that Poland would refuse to play games in Russia, and one in which Sweden and the Czech Republic — the two other teams that stand in Poland’s way of a place at the World Cup this winter — joined its boycott. “There was no reaction,” Kwiatkowski said.It took several more days for FIFA to respond at all, and when it did so it “did not go far enough,” Szczesny said. FIFA’s initial punishment prevented Russia only from playing on home soil, and under its own flag. Other than that, it would be free to compete. “It didn’t go down very well with the players,” Szczesny said. “It was not enough.”FIFA’s position changed quickly once the vehemence of the Polish players’ opposition became clear. “We sent them a statement that was very clear,” Kwiatkowski said. “We will not play Russia at all, regardless of the name they play under or where the venue might be.” By the next Monday, Feb. 28, FIFA had reversed course completely. Russia and Russian clubs, it declared, would no longer be able to play in its competitions, or in UEFA events. A subsequent ruling would decree that foreign players on Russian teams would be allowed to break their contracts and complete the season elsewhere.Russia-Ukraine War: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 4In the city of Mariupol. More

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      FIFA Will Allow Foreign Players in Russia to Break Contracts

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      The move is expected to be temporary, and less than player advocates had demanded, in hopes of not setting a precedent.Having decided that Russian teams cannot play international soccer for an indefinite period because of the country’s invasion of Ukraine, soccer’s governing body is now planning to announce that foreign players contracted by Russian teams can suspend their contracts and move elsewhere — at least temporarily.The decision will affect about 100 players, who will be able to set aside their Russian contracts and sign with new clubs through to June 30. The measure stops short of what groups representing players and worldwide leagues had requested. In a joint letter, reviewed by The New York Times, FIFPro, the largest players union, and the World Leagues Forum, an umbrella organization for more than 40 competitions, had asked FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, that athletes be allowed to leave Russia permanently.The request has created an awkward situation for FIFA. The organization had broken precedent when it moved to punish Russia for its actions in Ukraine — including barring Russia’s national team from qualifying matches for this year’s World Cup — but allowing players to break their contracts, especially outside of soccer’s traditional winter and summer windows, was potentially far more problematic.Talks over the weekend between the player groups and FIFA, which also included lawyers for European soccer’s governing body, UEFA, and club representatives, failed to reach a consensus, with officials said to be concerned about setting a precedent. Instead, FIFA has decided that players who want to leave Russian teams can do so but must return after June 30.An official statement is likely to come as soon as Monday. In their letter, FIFPro and the leagues group suggested that some players were no longer comfortable playing for Russian teams after the invasion of Ukraine.“These foreign players may rightfully consider that they are not willing to represent any longer a Russian team and should be able to immediately terminate their contract with their employer without facing any sanction whatsoever from international bodies and to be registered in a new club without being restricted by transfer period regulations,” the letter said.Under local rules, Russian clubs can have as many as eight foreign players, known as legionnaires, on their rosters. The current Russian champion, Zenit St. Petersburg, has five Brazilians, a Colombian, a Croatian and a player from Kazakhstan on its squad.At least one club, Krasnodar, announced last week that it would allow its foreign players and coaching staff to suspend their contracts. Its German coach, Daniel Farke, the former manager of the English Premier League club Norwich, quit less than two months into his contract without overseeing a single game. But foreign players continued to suit up for Russian teams in the most recent round of domestic league games over the weekend.Russia’s declaration of war has exposed gaps in the statutes under which sporting organizations like FIFA are organized. After the invasion began, and drew worldwide condemnation, FIFA lawyers and officials scrambled to find a way to take action that could be justified under its regulations. At first, officials proposed measures that stopped short of an outright ban: Russia was to be prohibited from playing on home soil and barred from using its flag and even its name. But that punishment unraveled within 24 hours when Russia’s opponents — and about a dozen other countries — announced that they would refuse to share a field with Russia wherever, and whenever, games were to be played.A day later, FIFA threw Russia’s teams and its clubs out of world soccer. But its lawyers are already bracing for a fight over the decision. Russia’s soccer federation has called for an expedited hearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in order for a decision to be made before March 24, the date when it was supposed to host Poland in a World Cup qualification playoff.Russia-Ukraine War: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 3Evacuation efforts under attack. More

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      FIFA Will Ban Russia, Ejecting It From World Cup Qualifying

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      World soccer’s global governing body suspended Russia and its teams from all competitions on Monday, ejecting the country from qualifying for the 2022 World Cup only weeks before it was to play for one of Europe’s final places in this year’s tournament in Qatar.The suspension, which was announced Monday evening in coordination with European soccer’s governing body, also barred Russian club teams from international competitions. The decision came a day after FIFA was heavily criticized for not going far enough in punishing Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, and amid mounting demands from national federations for stronger action.The initial pressure for an outright ban of Russia came from soccer officials in Poland, Sweden and the Czech Republic, whose national team faced the prospect of games against Russia in a World Cup playoff in March. Other countries and officials, including the federations representing France, England and the United States, quickly said they would not play Russia under any circumstances.England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿, Albania 🇦🇱, Czech Republic 🇨🇿, Denmark 🇩🇰, Ireland 🇮🇪, Norway 🇳🇴, Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿, Switzerland 🇨🇭, Sweden 🇸🇪, Wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿… football Europe follows the Polish path. Together we are stronger! #SolidarityWithUkraine 🇺🇦Dziękujemy! | Thank you!— Cezary Kulesza (@Czarek_Kulesza) February 28, 2022
      FIFA and its European counterpart, UEFA, said the ban on Russia would be in place “until further notice.”“Football is fully united here and in full solidarity with all the people affected in Ukraine,” FIFA said in a statement. Ukraine’s team, which is set to play Scotland in its own World Cup playoff in March, will remain in the competition.UEFA then went a step further in breaking its deep ties to Russia: It announced that it had ended a sponsorship agreement with the Russian energy giant Gazprom. The deal was worth a reported $50 million a year to European soccer.UEFA had last week stripped St. Petersburg, the home of Gazprom, of this year’s Champions League final. The game will be played in France instead.Ukraine will take part in the playoffs for the final European World Cup places next month. Russia, now, will not.Fehim Demir/EPA, via ShutterstockFIFA and UEFA decided to bar Russia only hours after the International Olympic Committee called for international sports federations to prohibit Russian athletes and teams from all global sporting events where possible. The Olympic officials said Russia had breached a commitment — known as the Olympic Truce, and signed before the start of the Beijing Winter Games and scheduled to run through the Paralympics that open this week — when it invaded Ukraine.The immediate consequence of soccer’s ban on Russia is that it will lose its place in a four-team group for one of Europe’s final places for the World Cup. Poland, which was scheduled to play Russia in March in Moscow, had said flatly that it would refuse to take the field for the game, a stance it repeated after FIFA announced its initial slate of penalties on Sunday night.Cezary Kulesza, the president of Poland’s soccer federation, called FIFA’s initial decision not to eject Russia “totally unacceptable.” In a post on Twitter, he added: “We are not interested in participating in this game of appearances. Our stance remains intact: Polish National Team will NOT PLAY with Russia, no matter what the name of the team is.”Sweden and the Czech Republic, the teams that could have met Russia — also in Moscow — if the Russians beat Poland, said that they, too, would refuse to play, even at a neutral site.Russia-Ukraine War: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 4On the ground. More

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      Canada Beats U.S., Cementing a Soccer Power Shift

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      The victory in a World Cup qualifier moved Canada to the cusp of its first World Cup berth since 1986, and reasserted its sudden dominance in North America.HAMILTON, Canada — If it wasn’t already clear which country in North and Central America and the Caribbean had the best soccer team during this World Cup qualifying cycle, Canada provided another resounding argument for its primacy on Sunday.With a 2-0 win over the United States on a frigid afternoon, Canada, without its best player, extended its lead atop the eight-team qualifying group that will determine the region’s berths in this year’s World Cup. Now four points clear of its closest rival with four games remaining, Canada has put itself in pole position for one of the region’s three automatic spots in Qatar in November.And with its hardest tests behind it — Canada went unbeaten in home and away matches against the region’s two traditional heavyweights, the United States (1-0-1) and Mexico (1-0-1) — a generational achievement may be just around the corner: Should Canada qualify, its World Cup trip will be the first for its men’s team since 1986.Canada’s head coach, John Herdman, who is from England, said Sunday’s events made him feel for the first time that he was living in “a football country.” The team bus, for example, was welcomed by cheering fans, confetti and smoke.“This is what we’ve dreamed of,” he added later. “It’s absolutely what we’ve dreamed of to get people excited. And people who have always had to wear an Italian shirt or a Serbian shirt or a Greek shirt, they can put them down. That’s what we want them to do, and pull on their Canadian jersey and now be proud of us.”The defeat, in front of a raucous crowd in Hamilton, was a blow for the United States, but hardly a fatal one. The Americans moved into a tie for second place with Mexico, which tied Costa Rica, 0-0, later on Sunday.“The result hurts but the performance doesn’t,” U.S. Coach Gregg Berhalter said. He insisted he wasn’t making excuses, but noted how a narrow field and “very poor field turf” made it harder for his team to create and process scoring chances. A few injuries in the game also undermined the Americans. Overall, Berhalter noted how the United States dominated possession of the ball but lacked precision at the other end of the field.“When we talked about what we needed to do to win this game, we checked almost all the boxes,” he said.The last — and only previous — time Canada played in the soccer’s showcase tournament, only one player on its current national team roster was alive: defender Atiba Hutchinson, 39. But re-energized by a talented crop of young stars, and Europe-based professionals like Cyle Larin, who scored an early opening goal on Sunday, and Sam Adekugbe, who added the late clincher, Canada has risen from years as an afterthought into a power.With its victory, Canada remained the only unbeaten team in the final round of qualifying in the region, and posted its first victory over the United States in World Cup qualifying in 42 years.“Whenever we went to the U.S., they have 50-, 60,000 people screaming at us, and we’re tired of that not respecting us,” said the Canadian goalkeeper Milan Borjan, adding that he didn’t want his country to be “humiliated” anymore.He added later: “But now, when they come to us or we go there, they’re scared. They’re scared the last four or five matches; they’ve been scared against us.”Canada took advantage of a sloppy start by the United States to snatch an early goal after only seven minutes, and held on the rest of the game even after the Americans began to dominate play. In front of a crowd that braved the wind chill of 18 degrees Fahrenheit at game time, Canada yielded its share of possession at times but little ground, matching the Americans’ pressure with aggressive, physical and at times pugnacious responses.The opening goal came amid a series of U.S. mistakes. Canada won Matt Turner’s short goal kick in the air and then used a quick interchange of passes to transform a turnover into a goal. Larin, after a give-and-go with Jonathan David, got a step on U.S. center back Miles Robinson, who slipped trying to keep up, and blasted a shot past a diving Turner. Canada did this all without Alphonso Davies, the Bayern Munich star who will miss this window’s games while recovering from a Covid-related heart issue.As the first half wore on, the United States slowly gained more control of both the pace and the ball. But the same issue that marked its earlier qualifying missteps returned: It failed to convert its chances.Berhalter has relied on a rotation of players, particularly at forward, as he has tried to balance his players’ fitness and exploit matchups in World Cup qualifying. On Sunday, he started Gyasi Zardes at striker over Jesús Ferreira, the surprise starter in Thursday’s win over El Salvador, and Ricardo Pepi, the teenager whose form may be the key to America’s World Cup hopes. Called upon again by Berhalter on Sunday, Zardes looked overmatched at times, and eventually was replaced in the 67th minute. Pepi offered a spark, but by then Canada had hunkered down to close out its victory.“Defensively,” Borjan said, “we played amazing.”Zardes, though, was not the only American who failed to find the back of the net. In the 36th minute, Christian Pulisic sailed a free kick from just beyond the penalty area over the goal.Tajon Buchanan, right, and Canada frustrated Sergiño Dest and the United States all game.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press, via Associated PressWeston McKennie had a header saved off the crossbar by Borjan just before halftime. And in the 85th minute, Paul Arriola — another late substitution as Berhalter chased a goal — sent a bicycle kick just wide of the goal.When Adekugbe split the defense on a counterattack in injury time and slotted in the second goal, the Canadians on the field, on the bench and in the stands knew victory — and perhaps a World Cup spot — was theirs. It may take another game or two, but for the players, and perhaps for some of their fans, it is starting to feel like the chance of a lifetime.“We’re the only team that is undefeated and we take pride in that,” the Canadian midfielder Jonathan Osorio said. “This is a big win, but it’s just another three points. We want to stay atop of this region.” More

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      U.S. Beats El Salvador to Inch Closer to World Cup

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      A victory over El Salvador moved the Americans another step closer to a place in this year’s World Cup in Qatar.The goal celebration, it turned out, provided the match’s final moment of drama.Seconds after United States defender Antonee Robinson scored what proved to be the winning goal for the Americans in their 1-0 victory over El Salvador on Thursday night, he wheeled away from the goal, did a handspring and then pulled up grabbing his left hamstring. Playing through 30-degree temperatures — U.S. Soccer had scheduled the game for Columbus, Ohio, in January to try to gain a mental, if not meteorological, advantage over its Central American rivals — had suddenly seemed to backfire.Robinson, though, was only joking. He quickly turned his (faked) anguished steps into a full-blown strut, to the delight of his teammates and the immense relief of his coaches. And just like that, the United States had moved another step closer to claiming a place in this year’s World Cup in Qatar.aaaaannnndddd…. we’re flippin’🤸‍♂️🤸‍♂️🤸‍♂️ @antonee_jedi 🤸‍♂️🤸‍♂️🤸‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/8tiyj37Zof— U.S. Soccer MNT (@USMNT) January 28, 2022
      The victory, combined with other results on a chilly night of qualifying matches in North and Central America and the Caribbean, kept the United States securely in contention to take control of its qualifying group in an important showdown with Canada on Sunday in Hamilton, Ontario. When the final whistle blew in Columbus, Canada was leading Honduras at halftime.United States Coach Gregg Berhalter made only one notable change to his lineup on Thursday, inserting Jesús Ferreira, a surprise starter over Ricardo Pepi, his former F.C. Dallas teammate, at striker. Ferreira offered energy, movement and some excellent connections in the first half. But he failed to convert two excellent chances in the first 20 minutes, and the Americans drifted into halftime with the majority of the possession and a near-monopoly on the frustration.The breakthrough came early in the second half, after Timothy Weah shed his defender and fired a shot at the near post that ricocheted off the goalkeeper and high in the air in the 52nd minute. A header across the goal eluded players on both teams and bounced directly in front of Robinson, who buried a one-time shot with his left foot.The goal, and the 1-0 deficit, seemed to take the life out of the Salvadorans, who now have been shut out in five of their nine qualifiers. A comeback seemed out of reach even before Robinson’s injury gag: El Salvador has yet to score two goals in any of its matches in the final round. Finding two against the United States in the cold was beyond a long shot.But the Americans seemed to ease up as well: Christian Pulisic departed just after the hour mark, presumably to bank a bit of rest before the Canada match, and Ferreira and Weah soon followed him to the bench.Jesús Ferreira made a surprise start for the U.S.Emilee Chinn/Getty ImagesWith three games scheduled in eight days in the current qualifying window, the United States has a chance to move into a commanding position to claim one of the region’s three automatic berths to the World Cup early in the final three-game window in March. (It was mathematically possible, though extremely unlikely, that the Americans could have claimed a World Cup place by next week if a complicated series of results broke their way.)Through eight of the 14 qualifiers, the United States was in second place entering Thursday’s games, one point behind Canada, the surprise group leader, one ahead of the archrival Mexico and Panama.Mexico kept pace by rallying for a 2-1 victory against Jamaica in Kingston, and Canada remained atop the group by beating Honduras, 2-0, in San Pedro Sula later in the evening.The United States can take control of the group if they can beat the Canadians — weakened by the absence of the Bayern Munich wing Alphonso Davies — on Sunday. They will then face Honduras on Wednesday in St. Paul, Minn., hoping to make it three wins in a week.“We’re in a good position,” Pulisic said earlier this week, “and by the end of this window, we could be in a great position.” More

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      Italy and Portugal Drawn in Same Group for World Cup Playoff

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      The draw for Europe’s final three qualifying places ensured that either Italy, the European champion, or Portugal, with Cristiano Ronaldo, would miss the finals in Qatar.Italy and Portugal were drawn into the same World Cup qualifying bracket on Friday, ensuring that either the reigning European champion (Italy) or one of soccer’s biggest stars (Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo) will be absent from next year’s tournament in Qatar.Italy will face North Macedonia at home in a semifinal in March, and the winner will travel to play the winner of the bracket’s other semifinal — either Portugal or Turkey — for one of the last three European places in the World Cup. The Portugal-Turkey winner would host that game five days later.🥁 The semi-finals are set for the European play-offs!🎫 One team from each of the 3 paths will reach the #WorldCup 🏆 pic.twitter.com/cvkFwdzQoX— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) November 26, 2021
      The potential for such a high-stakes showdown also raised the possibility that Italy would miss the World Cup for the second cycle in a row. Italy lost a playoff for a place in the last World Cup, in Russia in 2018 — a defeat that one newspaper declared a “national shame.”“It could have been a little better, for sure,” Italy Coach Roberto Mancini told the Italian broadcaster RAI2 after Friday’s playoff draw. “As we would have gladly avoided them,” he added, “probably they too would have avoided us.”The possible showdown was the most intriguing of several high-stakes matchups for Europe’s last three spots in Qatar, and the first test of a new qualifying format. In the past, the European playoffs have taken the form of two-legged, head-to-head matchups.Instead, this year, the 12 teams — 10 of which finished as runners-up in their qualifying groups — were split into three four-team paths, each with its own semifinals and final. Only the winning team from each path qualifies for the World Cup.In the other brackets, Scotland will face Ukraine, with the winner meeting Wales or Austria, and Russia will host Poland for the right to face Sweden or the Czech Republic.Wales, which made its only World Cup appearance in 1958, was drawn into the same bracket as Scotland, which has not qualified since 1998.Ten European teams — led by Germany, France, Belgium and England — have already qualified, as have the two South American favorites, Brazil and Argentina.Friday’s draw also set up second-chance routes to the World Cup for countries from four other regional confederations. In those games, the fourth-place team from Concacaf, the region comprising North and Central America and the Caribbean, would play the Oceania champion, and the fifth-place team from South America would play the fifth-place team from Asia.Those games will be played as single-leg matches in Qatar next June 13 and 14 — more than two months after the World Cup draw sorts the 32-team field on April 1. More

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      The World Cup Is a Year Away. Who’s In?

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      The World Cup Is a Year Away. Who’s In?Rory SmithReporting on global soccer ⚽️Michel Euler/Associated PressWith Qatar 2022, arguably the most controversial World Cup in modern soccer history, now a year away, the field is starting to take shape.This is where things stand so far → More

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      Erling Haaland and Norway Miss the World Cup

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      Norway’s failure to qualify for Qatar means Erling Haaland will have to watch from home. Norway has taken it in stride.Somewhere, in a darkened room, Erling Haaland was watching. Injury meant he would not be able to take the field for Norway’s most significant match in 20 years. The Netherlands’ return to partial lockdown last weekend meant, with the game played behind closed doors, he would not even be able to support his national team from the stands.Instead, Haaland had to follow from afar, powerless to help. Two minutes into the game, he posted an image of the game’s television broadcast on Instagram, accompanied by a Norwegian flag and the heart emoji. There was, then, still a scintilla of hope. Norway needed to beat the Netherlands, in Rotterdam, to have a chance of qualifying automatically for its first World Cup since 1998, and its first major tournament since 2000.If Turkey — the other contender in the group — had lost its final game, against Montenegro, then a tie would have been enough to keep Norway alive, too, at least for the time being: A second-place finish would have earned the Norwegians a slot in the playoffs for Europe’s three final berths in Qatar. Those games will be played in March. Haaland would have been fit by then, and a fit Haaland would have changed everything.It will not matter now. Turkey won, after falling behind to an early goal in Podgorica, leaving Norway no choice but to gamble, to win, to have any hope. Instead, its team seemed to freeze, falling to a limp, toothless 2-0 defeat. “They only had half a chance,” as Louis van Gaal, the Dutch coach, put it.Norway’s path to the 2022 World Cup ended with a loss to the Netherlands on Tuesday.John Thys/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThat was no surprise, given the circumstances. “They have a great team spirit,” Virgil van Dijk, the Netherlands captain, said of Norway. “They never give up.” But, he said, “they have a fantastic striker, who they naturally missed.” That fantastic striker had been condemned to watching from home. He did not post again. His feed, like his room, had gone dark.That Haaland will not be present in Qatar next year is, from a neutral perspective, a source of regret. He is already one of the world’s most devastating strikers, the scorer of 70 goals in 69 games since joining Borussia Dortmund in January 2020, including 13 in only 10 appearances this season before sustaining a hip injury — expected to sideline him until next year — in October.Together with Kylian Mbappé, the 21-year-old Haaland is already seen as the standard-bearer for soccer’s first post-Lionel-Messi-and-Cristiano-Ronaldo generation. By the time the World Cup rolls around next November, he may be one of the most expensive players on the planet, too.After failing to sign Harry Kane last summer, Manchester City’s chief executive, Khaldoon al-Mubarak, instructed the club’s recruitment department to make acquiring Haaland — whose father, Alfie, played for City in its previous incarnation as a lovable, hapless underdog — its primary focus. Extracting him from Dortmund will cost somewhere north of $150 million.That soccer’s quadrennial showpiece will take place without a player of that skill, that value, dulls its luster just a little. Within Norway, though, the country’s absence from Qatar has been greeted with circumspection, rather than a sense of crisis.“We have done well to have a chance at all,” Erik Thorsvedt, a former national team goalkeeper who now works as a television analyst, said before Norway’s final two qualifiers: a dispiriting goalless draw with Latvia, which left the team with no margin for error, and Tuesday’s defeat against the Netherlands.“Our first ‘home’ game was not at home at all: We had to play Turkey in Spain because of Covid restrictions in Norway, and we lost. Given the circumstances, given the draw, given where we were seeded, that we are in contention even to make the playoffs is a success.”That it now possesses one of the most coveted players in the world did not mean Norway started qualification for Qatar with any great expectations; indeed, many in the country were uneasy at the prospect of legitimizing a tournament as swaddled in controversy by playing in it.Norway’s players wore shirts protesting Qatar’s human rights record before a World Cup qualifier in Spain in March.Jorge Guerrero/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBesides, Norway does not feel it has any deep-seated right to make it as far as the finals. Other than that brief, bright window of hope in 1998 and 2000, and a group-stage exit in the United States in 1994, it has only ever qualified for one other major tournament: the 1938 World Cup, where it played one game, lost it and promptly went home.It is the sort of record that prompted Karl Ove Knausgaard, the country’s celebrated novelist and autobiographer, to describe the team’s history as a series of games “in rainy Eastern Europe that they lost.”“The matches did not last an hour and a half,” he wrote. “They played up to five, six hours at a time, almost like in cricket.”The Norway that made it to France in 1998 and the Netherlands and Belgium two years later, for the European Championship, was the exception, not the rule. When the success faded, and mediocrity set in, Knausgaard found it comforting. “It was as if childhood came back, the world resumed its usual form,” he wrote. “Reassurance lay around me like a gray cardigan and a pair of gray felt slippers.”That downturn was linked, no doubt, to the diminishing numbers of Norwegians playing in elite European leagues, particularly the Premier League. For much of the 1990s, most English teams had some sort of Norwegian influence: 23 players from Norway were registered to top-flight English clubs in 1997, forming the core of the squad that would play in the World Cup at the end of that season.By 2014, that group was down to one: Brede Hangeland was the lone Norwegian representative in the Premier League. (“The Norwegian players in the big international clubs disappeared,” Knausgaard wrote. “Again, it became great to be a professional in Twente or Heerenveen or Nottingham or Fulham, and for an old man like me, it felt safe.”) England had always been Norway’s primary export market; now, English clubs were habitually shopping in France, Spain, Argentina and Brazil, and Norway suffered.That has, slowly, started to change, and Norway’s horizons have broadened as a result. Haaland is not the sole representative of the country’s new generation: He has been joined by Martin Odegaard, the Arsenal playmaker; Sander Berge, a well-regarded midfielder at Sheffield United; and Alexander Sorloth, a towering forward at Real Sociedad, the Spanish league leader.The depth of resources gives this campaign an air not of a missed opportunity, but a harbinger of a brighter future. “I am absolutely sure we will succeed in Germany 2024 if we continue with what we have started,” Stale Solbakken, the Norway coach, said on national television on Tuesday, referring to the next edition of the European Championship.There are plenty who read it the same way. “I’m sure that we will qualify for tournaments in the future,” said Henning Berg, the former Manchester United defender who formed part of Norway’s squads for both the 1998 World Cup and Euro 2000. “If it was just Haaland, then we would have a problem. We have seen with other countries that one top-class player, on their own, is not enough. But it is not just him.”This time, Haaland could do nothing but watch as Norway fell at the final hurdle, unable to cope with his absence. He, and the rest of his teammates, the rest of his country, will have to do the same in almost exactly a year, as the World Cup kicks off without one of the sport’s central figures. It feels, though, as if the exile is ending. Norway is confident that its time is coming again. Sooner or later, Haaland will lead his country out of the darkness, and into the light. More