Greg . 1 day ago

Verbal abuse forced Norwegian coach to change email following failed World Cup campaign

Coach of the Norwegian national team, Stale Solbakken, says he was forced to switch email address when Norway failed to qualify for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

The national team manager revealed that he was forced to change email address during the 2022 World Cup qualifying campaign when he took part in a panel debate on Thursday.

The topic of the session was why the nation's "well-being depends on Norway succeeding in the ongoing World Cup qualification" after a 25-year drought.

Along the way, Solbakken spoke, among other things, about the love, support and commitment his players feel from the Norwegian people.

Solbakken was appointed as Norwegian national team coach in December 2020 and was left with the ultimate responsibility of qualifying the team for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

 During the campaign he noticed the population's interest in the national team particularly well.

"In the last World Cup qualifying campaign, I had to change my email address because there were 300,000-400,000 people who emailed me to select the proper team for the campaign.

And it gets tiring to read them all.

And it wasn't just good words", said Solbakken according to Dagbladet.

noSolbakken and Norway have made a bright start to qualifying phase of next year's World Cup in the USA/Canada but Solbakken says that he is feeling the pressure: "I've been feeling better.

When you walk through the streets here yesterday and now, I feel that people look at me and say that "now we have to do it", he said during Thursday's session.

In the session, the lines were drawn back to the national football team's success under Egil "Drillo" Olsen's leadership in the 1990s.

A point was made that the coaching legend was not too concerned with how Norway played football - as long as the matches ended in a victory.

Solbakken points out that a lot has changed since then.

"If I had gone to the guys we have now and said we should play the way we did in 1998, Haaland would have taken his private plane home.

It is one hundred percent certain", he said.

Norway won their first two matches in the World Cup qualifying campaign, 3-0 against Italy at home and 1-0 away against Estonia.

Norway will face Molodova in their next game on 9 September.