Saturday 11th July 2026 – Result.
Did Schjelderup shout ‘Fore’ as he sliced his shot from the left wing into England’s net while failing to cross for Haaland? If he did Pickford didn’t hear it as instead of tipping it away for the corner, which he could’ve done, he decided to let it go harmlessly out of play for the goal kick which it didn’t do … ooops.
So 36 minutes in, 0-1 down and England had gone from playing on a flat but hot and humid pitch to climbing a familiar peak – Mount come-back-from-behind in equally hot and humid conditions.
Just 10 minutes later, in the first of four minutes of first half added time, at 46′ elapsed match time it was 1-1 courtesy of Bellingham.
Normally no one pays much attention to how these plays start but in this case the Norwegian bench was protesting it: Nyland kicked from his goal down field, Anderson ran to where the ball was heading on the far left at half-way, controlled it to the ground, passed to Gordan down the left who low crossed for Bellingham at the centre edge of the penalty area. Belingham ran it wide left to the 6-yard box and powered the ball low and fast into the far right of Norway’s goal. One one, thank you very much, back to playing on the flat in hot and humid conditions.
For Norway the controversy is “Spidercam”, the pitch’s overhead camera suspended on a web of cables. Norway’s bench claimed the ball fell to Anderson after it hit Spidercam cables. It’s not that they’re claiming that Anderson would not have got the ball anyway. In fact if you look at the replays of Nyland’s kick you’ll see that Anderson and no one else was already heading towards where he would eventually control it for his pass to Gordon. What’s intriguing is that he has to suddenly head further towards the edge of the pitch mid run as he seems to have misjudged where it was originally going.
What Norway’s bench simply wanted was that Nyland should have been able to take his kick again because something which by the rules of football that can’t touch the ball did. Fifa went to the ball’s internal “snickometer” and showed that it had detected no in flight collision refuting Norway’s claim of “Spidercam” interference. The goal stood.
Practically at the start of the second half, at 55′, Norway’s Heggem scored in a post-corner scramble. It’s 2-1 and England stare again at the peak of Mount come-back-from-behind. This turns out to be very endurable as they only needed to stand around not playing while a VAR review of the arc of this play takes place ending with the goal disallowed and the score back to 1-1. What went on? Ironically it was Haaland fouling Anderson off the ball that prevented Haggem’s World Cup tally from increasing at all. Big escape for England and awful red-mist mistake by Haaland.
Full time and its stoppage minutes came and went with no improvement on the score moving play into extra time. Just 3 minutes into that and Bellingham puts England ahead, puts Norway onto Mount come-back-from-behind and puts Nyland into a world of goalie pain as he’d spilt a save from a 30 yard strong strike from Rogers right to Bellingham’s lethal right foot … ooops from Norway’s goal this time.
Two one, England ahead for the first time and there it stayed.
Norway go out and Norway’s fans have to slip their Viking longboat back into the Atlantic and reap the benefits of all their recent rowing practice with a slightly faster slow boat back home.
England march on to the semi-finals and learn their fate is a game (or maybe a clash?) against Argentina on Wednesday 15th July in Atlanta.
Here are the match highlights in this quickie Fifa video, no ads, opens in a new tab. England in white and Norway in red: https://www.fifa.com/en/watch/6BptF8qH4saNhLcDzUOeQG