Why do Norway have so many supposed wonder kids but still can't qualify to any tournament? Even Northern Ireland has qualified.
- We don't have GK/defence.
- We don't have the mentality to see out games. If matches finished at 80 mins we'd be at most tournaments.
- We're getting screwed by our managers. All of them have their favorites. Players who simply don't play any football (I'm sure the goalie has played more national team games than club games in the past year), CB who has been absolutely dross for my local team this season (leaving us in a relegation battle) but somehow is first choice for the NT, players who are constantly played out of position etc.
- We're getting screwed by our federation. There's no common sense or football awareness. This guy (Nusa) was only last year banned from all NT age groups because he turned down a U17 call-up in the summer. At that stage he had played football for 18 straight months and needed a rest (season here starts in late winter so if you move abroad in the summer you don't really get any time off until 18 months later). Federation doesn't care about player welfare and banned him anyway. Way to take care of your talents.
- We're always in a group with one giant (Netherlands, Italy, Spain etc) who we can't compete against. But then there's also a lower pot team that out of nothing have the campaign of their lives. Last qualifiers Turkey were scoring from literally every shot and getting dodgy VAR pens deep into added time. These qualifiers Scotland have turned into peak Brazil. McTominay is looking like the second coming of Pele in this group. This is especially annoying because there are always 5-6 other groups that are piss poor but we're never in any of those.
- We're getting screwed by our government. First they forced us to forfeit an easy home game against Romania because of one covid case. 3 points down the drain. 3 days later they forced us to field an entirely new squad away to Austria. A bunch of no names who had never played with each other before had to win by 2 goals. We heroically led the game right until the final moments as we threw everyone in attack and they managed to draw the game.
- We're getting screwed by our government part 2. We had the advantage of playing both the Euro play-off semi and final at home. Our government didn't allow more than 200 fans. Essentially made it a neutral game and we were knocked out by Serbia on a soulless night with no one in attendance.
- We're getting screwed by our government part 3. As if these incompetent clowns hadn't caused enough trouble already, they wouldn't allow traveling teams into the country without quarantining. So we had to move our home qualifiers to Spain. Turkey couldn't believe their luck as they faced us in 30 degrees at some training complex instead of a freezing, bitter and sold out March evening in Oslo.
- We're getting screwed by UEFA rules. Russia getting banned means there's a group with 3 teams in League B of Nations League. So all groups are getting results against 4th placed teams nulled. This has meant Finland are ranked just ahead of us in the play-offs. At the moment Finland are getting the final play-off spot and we are just on the outside. We picked up more points than Finland but they are getting rewarded for picking up fewer points against the 4th place than we did. Cheers UEFA/Russia.
- We're getting screwed by League A nations not doing their job in the qualifiers. If your mate Santos hadn't fecked up a piss easy group with Poland we'd be getting their play-off spot. Cheers Santos.
The universe doesn't want us at any tournaments and I've made my peace with it.
