– What can you say. Bad, concluded a frustrated Caroline Graham Hansen to NRK.

He had just walked off the field after Norway’s heavy defeat in their World Cup opener against host nation New Zealand. The Barcelona player seemed very annoyed and was short in his answers.

– We couldn’t get anything done. Then there will be losses.

Norway was considered by many to be the favorites before the match, but ended up losing 0-1. This means Hege Riise’s women’s team had the worst possible start to the championship.

– It’s sport, sport. It’s brutal, continues Graham Hansen.

– How is this for you personally?

– This is crazy. We went from one championship to another and underperformed. This is frustrating.

Rest

Another big Norwegian star, Ada Hegerberg, was of course also very disappointed after the match. As the referee stopped the match, the Lyon star was clearly frustrated, waving his arms and giving a clear message to his teammates.

– I’m very disappointed, and we should all be disappointed. “It was a bad game on our part, and we didn’t get involved and we can talk as much as we want, but we have to reach the level we want,” he told NRK.

He concluded:

– We are at half distance in everything we do, and will not have any relationship in the future. We didn’t get any good crosses or… We had some pretty good chances if we could have scored, but overall we were below par all game and never managed to create an established attack that put enough pressure on them, which I think we have a good chance of doing that.

This was New Zealand’s first World Cup win in 15 attempts. The only goal of the match came just after the break when Hannah Wilkinson put the ball into the net from close range.

– Absolutely cursed, Norway’s final defender Aurora Mikalsen told NRK.

– How?

– It’s something you’ve been waiting for a long time, and then we get caught up in the event. They beat us in duels and got the game their way. At the same time, I think we are dangerous when we organize the game in higher positions. That they take us within five meters where there will be a domino effect. “Ten seconds was devastating for us,” Mikalsen said.

– Give me a day or two and I can give you a much better answer. “Right now there’s just a lot of frustration,” he concluded his interview.

– It’s wrong to stand here

National team manager Hege Riise had this to say to NRK after the match:

– It was a very frustrating game for us on the bench and for the players out there. We don’t deliver what we feel we can deliver, and this may be due to a number of things. But they were on fire, they won the first and second balls, and we got hesitant and never got into a rhythm at all

– How are you now?

– It’s sad to stand here now and feel that we are no closer to what we feel we can do. That’s the picture of the game, we also have to face it, we didn’t do that.

After the match, Riise gathered the players. There they stood in a row in three circles and talked for a while.

– We just wanted to do a quick round with everyone, but what’s to say, I’m not involved in it. But I think it’s frustrating that we couldn’t do better, said the Norway boss.