The 0-8 loss in the EC against England on Monday night was the biggest loss in history for a Norwegian female footballer.

Especially before half-time, Norway were in poor form and trailed 0-6 after the first 45 minutes.

“Worst match management in history”.

Some are now critical that national team manager Martin Sjögren did not take action earlier.

– Sad to watch. I think you have missed the formation and withdrawal. It’s 6-0, it should be possible to make the move during these 47 minutes, comments NRK expert Elise Thorsnes.

TV 2 expert Yaw Ihle Amankwah summed it up like this Twitter:

“Worst match management in history”.

He explained this to NRK in the following way:

– I’m in the stadium and I’m sitting right behind Sjögren, and he allowed the first half to be played like that here, without taking action, without making any formation changes or game changes… Or really concrete, whatever. It was completely inconceivable to me. And that was a waiver of duty by Sjögren, Amankwah told NRK.

– Should have happened earlier

Sjögren made one change in the first half, bringing on Guro Bergsvand and sending off Karina Sævik, and at the same time switching to the back five line. However, England scored two more goals.

In front of NRK, Sjögren answered the following questions about why he had not taken action earlier:

– We waited until the break. When should you apply the emergency brake? We did that in the first half, but conceded two more goals. It is uncertain if that will stop the bleeding in the first place, the Swede said.

At his post-match press conference, Sjögren explained that he felt the need to stop to make changes.

– It’s always easy to look back. We had a very tough half hour. “Maybe we should have done something then, I don’t know if it will be better there and then,” said Sjögren.

– Aleksander Schau at studio NRK said it was the worst thing he had seen from the national team, and experienced it as a horror film. How did you experience it?

– It’s hard to stand there. And most importantly, it is also difficult for the players, you are always one step behind. So it was clear that it was the bitter truth. Now we have to try and deal with it and this game, and show that we are a strong group. EC is not over yet, it is a great consolation that we still have everything in our hands. And the game in the near future against Austria, if we win, we will continue. But yes, we have to face this effort here and that game, so I can promise that we will come out and get significantly better.

When 6-0 became a fact, the desperation of the Norwegian players radiated. Some looked down at the grass, others attacked with their hands. Then they scattered off the field.

At the same time, “Football’s coming home” echoed from the home crowd.

Arsenal boss critical

Jonas Eidevall, who is manager of Arsenal’s women’s team, also criticized Sjögren’s match management. Eidevall told the BBC:

– I am amazed that Norway has not changed anything. England played them to pieces and the coach looked lame, Eidevall said.

Sjögren insisted that he saw no reason to take action until 45 minutes had been played.

– Looks like I already answered your question. We chose to do it at the break because it needed a bit of adjustment, which we just needed to think more about when we were going to do it. We do it during breaks, yes. “I couldn’t have given a better answer,” the national team manager told NRK.

NRK met assistant coach Anders Jacobson during the break.

– Why is no action taken for the violation?

– We’ve made a few moves, we can only confirm… said Jacobsen before cutting himself off.

– VI have to start by apologizing. We haven’t been paid well for the moves we’ve made. We’ve done certain things we talked about that we no will do. There we are now very, very self-critical that we no have done it, quite simply. Now we will try to help in another way. “We’ll move on to five at the back, to get the finer control of the interior corridors we know the UK is looking for,” Jacobsen told NRK.

Biggest defeat in history

Change, combined with a confident English, means that “only” were two late goals in the 2nd half – but it could be more.

EC matches are still written in block letters – with a negative sign – in the history books for the Norwegian women’s national team. Norway’s biggest loss in the EC was 0-4 to Germany from 2009, but Norway’s biggest loss in the championship was 0-5 to China at the 1999 World Cup.

Norway’s biggest loss was 7-0 to the Netherlands last year.

All this is history after the 8-0 loss to England in EC.