adminNorway manager Ståle Solbakken didn’t hold back after his team’s agonizing 2-1 extra-time loss to England on Saturday night, delivering a blunt and critical take on both the match officials and the controversial call that turned the game on its head.
Speaking with restrained fury in his post-match press conference, the 58-year-old revealed the tense half-time exchange that unfolded in the tunnel and insisted his outrage wasn’t about sour grapes—but about what he views as a blatant error from which his players never recovered.
Norway were cruising toward a historic semi-final spot, leading 1-0 thanks to Erling Haaland’s sharp finish. But deep into first-half stoppage time, chaos struck.
A routine goal-kick from the Norwegian keeper struck an overhead camera cable dangling above the pitch—a fact immediately obvious to players, coaches, and the 65,000 fans packed into Hard Rock Stadium. Yet play continued, and Jude Bellingham pounced to knock in the equalizer.
The referee was France’s Clément Turpin, a highly experienced FIFA-listed official since 2010 who has overseen three World Cups and the 2022 Champions League final. Turpin has a tangled history with England manager Thomas Tuchel, who famously gave the Frenchman a “Grade E” rating and branded his performance “absolutely terrible” after a Champions League fixture in 2023.
Solbakken revealed that he stormed down the tunnel at halftime—not to confront Turpin directly, but to demand answers from the fourth official and VAR team.
“I walked straight to the tunnel. I made it crystal clear to the fourth official that they’d made a catastrophic error,” Solbakken said. “I told them: ‘You have the footage. You have every angle.
You have the technology. How can you possibly let that goal stand?’ The reply I got wasn’t good enough. They just said the ball sensor showed no contact. I told them: ‘I don’t care what a sensor says—my eyes work perfectly fine.’”
The Norway boss admitted the dressing room at the break was filled with disbelief and deflation.
“The players were furious—not in an aggressive way, just shattered. They’d executed the game plan to perfection. And then they walked off knowing they’d been robbed of a legitimate lead. I tried to lift them, but I could see it in their eyes—the damage was already done.”
Scathing Verdict on Turpin’s Performance
Solbakken was careful not to make personal attacks, but his assessment of Turpin’s overall refereeing was scathing.
“I’m not questioning the referee’s integrity. But I am questioning his competence—and I’m questioning the entire VAR protocol,” he said, his tone measured but firm. “When every single person in that stadium can see the ball hits the cable, and the only thing telling you otherwise is a graph on a screen—then the system is broken. You can’t prioritize data over reality.”
What truly inflamed the Norwegian camp, however, came next. Solbakken confirmed that an unnamed English player left his own dressing room and walked toward the Norway area, seemingly looking to confront one of his players.
“We were already livid about the decision. And then, right in the middle of that chaos, an English player comes walking toward our dressing room looking for one of our guys,” Solbakken said, visibly still agitated. “That is completely out of line. You don’t do that. You stay in your own space. You handle your own business. You don’t go looking for a confrontation in another team’s dressing room area.”
The manager declined to name the player but made it clear he saw the act as provocative and unacceptable.
“My staff had to step in. We told him to go back to his own dressing room. This is a football match—not a boxing ring. If one of my players had done that, I’d have been furious with him. I’d have demanded an immediate apology,” he added.
Solbakken also suggested the incident reflected the high-stakes tension that had been brewing all first half.
“The tension was already unbearable. The decision had already enraged my players. And then someone tries to escalate it further? That’s not sportsmanship. That’s not what this tournament should be about.”
He continued: “There were fouls missed, yellow cards that should have been given. I can accept those—they happen in every match. What I cannot accept is a decision that fundamentally changes a knockout tie based on technology that clearly failed.”
Beyond the refereeing storm, Solbakken addressed the wider circumstances that made the defeat even more bitter. He revealed that the oppressive Miami humidity, combined with the emotional toll of the equalizer, left his players physically and mentally drained.
“The tension was unbearable. Every tackle, every decision felt like it carried the weight of our whole campaign. My players gave everything they had. And when you give that much, then lose it on a call that should never have happened—it breaks you.”
The manager confirmed Haaland was substituted at the start of extra time because he had “nothing left to give.”
“Erling is the fittest player I’ve ever coached. But even he has limits. The heat drained him. The frustration drained him. I should have taken him off ten minutes earlier—that’s on me.”
Captain Martin Ødegaard echoed his manager’s anguish.
“We knew we’d been wronged. Every single player knew it. And when you know that, it’s almost impossible to reset your mind,” the Arsenal midfielder said. “That equalizer took something from us that we never got back. It wasn’t just a goal—it was a momentum shift we didn’t deserve.”
England now move on to a blockbuster semi-final clash with defending champions Argentina in Atlanta on Wednesday. For Norway, however, the pain of what might have been will linger.
“I told the players: ‘I am proud of you. Prouder than I’ve ever been. You didn’t lose this game. The circumstances lost it for you,’” Solbakken said. “But that doesn’t make it any easier to accept. And it doesn’t make me any less angry.”
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