Norway 0 England 1

Nor­way 0 Eng­land 1, Ull­evall Sta­dium, In­ter­na­tion­al Friendly Mat­ch, May 26, 2012. Eng­land la­boured to a nar­row 1-0 vic­tory ag­ainst Nor­way in Oslo. The Three Li­ons should have taken the lead in the fifth min­ute when free flow­ing Liver­pool flanker Stew­art Down­ing cros­sed for fel­low An­field play­er Andy Car­roll, but the stri­ker could on­ly head wide.

There was not much to re­mem­ber from this mat­ch, if look­ed from a Nor­we­gi­an point of view. In the ninth min­ute of the in­ter­na­tion­al friendly en­counter, Man­chester Uni­ted wing­er Ash­ley Young put the vis­it­ing si­de in­to an early lead af­ter an ab­so­lutely stun­ning in­di­vidu­al per­form­ance. That proved to be enough to over­come a Nor­we­gi­an te­am that had not lost an in­ter­na­tion­al ga­me at their Ull­evaal Sta­dium since June 2010. The long ball mer­chants of Nor­way al­most got an equal­iser shortly af­ter, tho­ugh, when Black­burn Rov­ers play­maker Morten Gamst Ped­er­sen hit the wood­work for the hosts dir­ectly from a flag-kick. Eng­land dom­in­ated the fir­st pe­riod and Man­chester City mid­fielder Ja­mes Mil­ner put the Nor­we­gi­an shot stop­per to the test wi­th a bril­liant ef­fort in the 34th min­ute. On­ly eight min­utes be­fore the sound of the ha­lf time sig­nal, how­ever, Ste­ven Ger­rard was book­ed for a mind­less and un­ne­ces­sary chal­lenge on Club Brugge Nor­way de­fender Tom Hogli that bro­ught jeers and boos from the ho­me crowd. Egil Olsen´s plucky play­ers pressed hard for a lev­el­ling goal dur­ing the sec­ond pe­riod but they could not find the back of net. And even tho­ugh the Nor­we­gi­an sup­port­ers felt that The Three Li­ons had used ex­cess­ively phys­ic­al tac­tics to win the friendly tie, it was a de­cent start for new­ly ap­poin­ted man­ager Roy Hodg­son. Nor­way Te­am: Rune Jarstein, Vadim De­midov, John Arne Riise, Tom Hogli, Brede Hange­land, Markus Hen­riksen, Morten Gamst Ped­er­sen, Al­ex­an­der Tettey, Mo­hammed Ab­del­laoue, Dan­iel Braaten, Tarik Elyoun­oussi. Sub­stitutes: Es­pen Bruge Pet­tersen, Kim An­dre Mad­sen, Valon Ber­isha, Es­pen Ruud, Chris­ti­an Grind­heim, Ruben Yt­ter­gard Jenssen, Er­ik Huseklepp. Eng­land Te­am: Rob Green, Jo­leon Le­scott, Leigh­ton Baines, Phil Jones, Phil Ja­gielka, Ash­ley Young, Ja­mes Mil­ner, Stew­art Down­ing, Ste­ven Ger­rard, Scott Par­ker, Andy Car­roll. Sub­stitutes: Joe Hart, Mar­tin Kel­ly, Al­ex­an­der Oxlade-Cham­ber­lain, Gar­eth Bar­ry, Jor­dan Hen­derson, Ad­am John­son, Theo Wal­cott, Jer­main Defoe.

England Quickfacts

Eng­land be­at Nor­way 4-0 in a Wor­ld Cup Quali­fier at Wemb­ley on the 10th of Septem­ber 1980. The start­ing el­ev­en were Pe­ter Shilton, Ken­ny Sansom, Viv An­der­son, Dave Wat­son, Phil Thomp­son, Terry Mc­Der­mott, Gra­ham Rix, Bry­an Rob­son, Paul Mar­iner, Eric Gates, and To­ny Woodcock. 

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