Austria Women 1 v 0 Norway Women

Friday 15th July 2022, Kick-off 20.00
UEFA Wonen’s Euro 2022, Group A
Brighton Community Stadium, Falmer

Admission: £10.00

Programme: £8.00 (covering whole tournament)

Attendance: 12,667

This evening I paid my second visit of the week to what is usually known as The Amex, for a game that would no doubt be rather lower key than Monday’s astonishing encounter, despite having much more riding on the outcome.

Following Monday’s results, this encounter would be a “winner takes all” clash to decide who would join England in the Quarter-Finals and a tie against Germany, although a draw would be sufficient for Austria to progress, as they only lost 0-1 against England compared with Norway’s 0-8 defeat here on Monday. In their games against minnows Northern Ireland, Austria won 2-0, while Northern Ireland won 4-1. History wasn’t on Austria’s side, having not beaten Norway in four previous encounters, and not were the FIFA rankings, with Norway in 11th place whilst Austria were ranked 21st.

Well, Monday’s rather shambolic performance certainly didn’t stir Norway into life, as they put in a very limp display for the most part, with Austria dominating the first half, with Norway only very rarely managing to foray forward. Austria came close to opening the scoring on 15 minutes, when a shot from the edge of the area by Laura Feiersinger went through the keeper’s fingertips, but fortunately for Guro Pettersen, the ball came back off the bar, before being hacked away. But Austria did deservedly break the deadlock on 37 minutes, when Verena Hanshaw’s perfect diagonal delivery into the box was met by a powerful header by Nicole Billa, sending the ball past the keeper’s dive and just inside the right hand post.

Norway hadn’t managed a shot on target throughout the first half, a theme that continued throughout most of the second half, as Austria continued to look far more likely to score. Norway didn’t have their first shot on target until the closing minutes, although Austria were grateful to their hitherto virtually redundant goalkeeper Manuela Zinsberger to pull off a great reflex parried save to deny Celin Bizet’s powerful drive, and shortly afterwards she turned away Ada Hegerberg’s close range shot.

But Austria withheld the late pressure to deservedly book a quarter-final tie against Germany, whilst Norway’s performances must be one of the biggest disappointments of this tournament.