Brazil vs Norway is back in focus as Norway prepare to meet Brazil again, with the last meeting ending 2-1 to Norway at the 1998 World Cup. That result still sits at the center of the country’s tournament memory. The same squad also left that World Cup with a 1-0 loss to Italy in the last 16.
Marseille and Rekdal
The win in Marseille turned on a late penalty when the score was 1-1. Kjetil Rekdal took it and scored from the spot, while Arne Scheie captured the moment with, “Vi har scoret i Marseille!”
Scheie had already set the stakes with the line, “the most important kick of a ball in the history of the Norwegian football federation.” The sequence explains why the match keeps its hold on Norway’s football memory: it was a rare night against Brazil, and it arrived in the final group game of the tournament.
Solbakken and Norway
Ståle Solbakken has pointed to the pattern behind that era and the present one. “Historically in tournaments, Norway have played well in qualifying and then performed worse at the World Cup,” he said in a Netflix documentary released before this tournament.
He also said, “Now we have to see if we can raise our game.” That line fits the way Norway’s current team is being measured: against a side that qualified for two World Cups, reached second place in the Fifa rankings, and beat England, Italy, Netherlands and Brazil during that generation.
Norway’s World Cup standard
The contradiction is hard to miss. Norway’s first golden generation beat elite opposition and still never won a knockout game at a major tournament, and the 1998 campaign ended with that 1-0 loss to Italy after the Brazil win. Solbakken was in that Italy defeat for just over an hour, which ties the memory directly to the man now leading the team.
Three current Norway players also have fathers who played at the 1994 World Cup, and Norwegian fans have travelled to America and become a feature of the tournament with the Viking Row. The reunion with Brazil now tests whether Norway can turn that old result into more than a memory.
