Much like what we did during the World Cup, I'm starting this thread to keep all of Norway's Olympic news and happenings here. == -- Norway left for Beijing today. They have not appeared at the Olympics since the 2000 Sydney games, after having failed to qualify for Athens in 2004. -- An all-around Olympic roundup with Mykjåland and Stensland as their featured footballers: http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/distrikt/sorlandet/1.6150559 -- Also, Trine Rønning looks to be Bjarne's choice at playing right-back: http://www.ba.no/sport/article3682035.ece
Quick interview with Gunhild Følstad: http://www.namdalsavisa.no/Sport/article3682082.ece Elise Thorsnes interview: http://www.bygdanytt.no/btartikler/article602296.ece She says the 2-0 Germany win gave the whole team a much needed boost of confidence. She talks about training harder to make the squad and how much it means to her to play in the Olympics. General arrival/training round-up from the NFF site: http://www.fotball.no/t2.aspx?p=53172&cat=51835&x=1&a=230943 Complete with new team photo: Damn at those shirts. Last year's gold lettering with what looks to be a generic (non-Norway specific) Umbro shirt with the flag patches slapped on. God, I hope this is just a filler shirt for the OLY and Norway's new shirts don't actually look like this.
norway on yesterday end of afternoon training in Qinhuangdao http://sports.sina.com.cn/z/wft/photo/64549/index.shtml
That doesn't look like the shirts in the training photos posted above, cf. http://sports.sina.com.cn/g/p/2008-08-03/20273831828.shtml. Except for the jackets worn by the support staff. But the training shirts appear to have no emblem, though the shorts have numbers.
Thanks for the photos link! Usually, they have Statoil on the front of their training shirts, but I'm wondering if the OLY frowns upon shirt sponsors of any kind, even practice shirts. And yeah, Norway's practice shirts have always been different than their game shirts, and IIRC, they don't have any badges. Just a sponsor or two. I'm not sure about the numbers on the shorts ... They are training size No.s, but don't know why their shirts don't have them as well. I'm assuming Umbro didn't have a lot of time to get together new kits for the team, given the drage fiasco.
So they usually have no flags or identifiers of any kind? The German training shirts are different to match shirts too, but they definitely still have the shield.
Wow. Actually, those are old training shirts. They wore those during the WWC. They also have three more training shirts they rotate. Two all white and one dark blue. All the rest have Statoil (and Banken) patches, only the blue ones have numbers and then only one of the white ones DO have a small NFF decal/patch on the sleeves, but I don't remember them on the others. But that may have changed. They have a LOT of training kits, needless to say.
http://www.fifa.com/womensolympic/news/newsid=838843.html "Berntsen: No tougher start(FIFA.com) Tuesday 5 August 2008"
http://www.t-a.no/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080805/SPORT/475448267 Gøril Kringen, the captain of the 2000 Norway WNT that won gold in Sydney, has traveled to China so that she may analyze potential Norway opponents in the KO round.
I can't promise that it'll work, but one of the Swedish channels is offering the match as a live stream via their online service SVT Play. Since I'm in Sweden myself, I can't tell you if they block non-domestic access. Go to http://www.svt.se/os, then click on PLAY. The channel the match is on is SVT 24, not SVT 1. You can check if it works before the match, since they should start streaming from 10.55am Swedish time (in 7 and a half hours). The stream for the Norway-USA match starts at 1.40pm Swedish time. NRK have a similar Olympics campaign online, but last time I tried to watch a match there they blocked my IP address. This they warn that they will do in exceptional circumstances to save bandwidth, but it seems to be standard practice. The crazy thing is that NRK appear to only start their online broadcasts from the 8th! Seems nobody told them about the football...
NRK and SVT would probably be the only ones. NBC will be showing their matches online as well, but it requires Windows Vista or the latest Mac OS. -- Also, you may want to see if your cable/TV provider will have the NBC Olympic Soccer Channel. DirecTV allegedly will have it on 755. But it will only come on from 5 a.m.-5 p.m. on game days. Just in case you need it.
OK, an update for anyone who wants to try the Swedish live stream: When you go to http://www.svt.se/os , there's a heading "OS Live" and you just click on the 24 icon for the Norway match. Would be grateful if someone who tries it could let me know how it works with non-domestic IP addresses.
Norway team: Skarbø Rønning Stangeland Fiane Christensen Følstad Knutsen Stensland Storløkken Wiik Gulbrandsen Kaurin Possibly got some players in wrong positions. No big surprises, it seems.
Well done girls Should make the semis from here. Canada a likely quarter-final opponent all of a sudden.
NORGE - USA 2-0 (2-0) Stadion: Qinhaungdao Olympic Sporst Center. Tilskuere: 7400 Dommer: Nicole Petignat, Sveits. Kort: Ingen. Mål: 1-0 Leni Larsen Kaurin (2.min). 2-0 Melissa Wiik (4.min). Norges lag (4-3-3): Erika Skarbø - Trine Rønning, Marit Fiane Christensen, Ane Stangeland Horpestad, Gunnhild Følstad - Marie Knutsen (Siri Nordby 88.min), Ingvild Stensland, Lene Storløkken - Leni Larsen Kaurin (Guro Knutsen 67.min), Solveig Gulbrandsen, Melissa Wiik (Lene Mykjåland 69.min). Official NFF match write up.
A nice headline from Adressa.no: Ja, vi elsker jentene våre It reads, 'Yes, we love our girls.' It's a takeoff from the Norwegian anthem that goes 'Yes, we love this land.' And here's something kind of funny, from VG.no: Hvorfor er damene gode, og mennene dårlige? Or .. 'Why are the women good, and the men bad?' There's 10-12 pages of debate on this.
Well, at least it got to page 2 before middle-aged men who hadn't played football since middle school were pretty much claiming that they could gather some friends together at short notice and beat any women's national team. Earlier than that you had the first mention of the fact that it was only the more "masculine" players who were any kind of good. But "Sania" on page 4 I would like to invite over for dinner.
So what's the story on the shirts? The ones they wore in the US game aren't the "new shirts" they announced a few months back, right? (with or without the dragon in place of the flag)
Er. Sure. 1 -- Shirts come out. Flag is moved from chest to back; Dragon fills in for flag patch on left chest. 2-- Public outcry is HUGE. In brief, being on the national teams has become known as 'playing with the flag upon your chest.' It's a time honored tradition and Norwegians feel like the NFF has slapped them in the face. (Some complain about the Dragon, some think it looks too much like the Three Lions badge for England, because the same guy designed both ... Some don't care for the Dragon/Viking symbols because Viking isn't just a Norway thing, but is shared by other Scando countries.) 3 -- NFF two days later pulls the shirts back, say the nat teamers will never play in that shirt. They immediately sell the 11,000 shirts they have printed. They also sell the shorts, GK kits, socks, etc. online for a very reduced price. 4 -- Old shirts are put back onto the men's and women's teams. 5 -- OLY shirts you see on the women are, I believe, old Umbro template (not kits, but template), NOT team specific. The shorts they are wearing are the same shorts from the WWC. The numbers are the exact same numbers from the WWC and the flag patch on the shirts are not the fabric patch, but rather, the iron on/vinyl patches. So, they're playing in a patchwork kit or sorts, for lack of a better term. There's no way the NFF could have turned around a new logo, shirt and get them made before the OLY. So, this is what the women have in between. Whatever it is, it's working.
Wow, a full-scale dustup over your jerseys. Cool! Were you able to get your dragon shirt? I remember reading in one of the threads that you needed to get a Kelly Smith jersey but didn't like the new England jerseys (agree with you on that one --you better hope Norway doesn't follow the same template as England, which they have a few times in the past.) Send me a message if you're interested in older ones.