The World Cup is underway and everyone is looking for a team to follow. Most Americans are cheering for the USA. Some with ethnic ties elsewhere are rooting for England, Mexico, Brazil and other countries.
But if you are still looking for a team to call your own you could do worse than Norway.
Sure, the Norwegians don’t have much of a World Cup history and are not among the favorites at 35-to-1 odds to claim the gold trophy. Outside of visiting the Norway pavilion at EPCOT, most Americans likely have not set foot in the Scandinavian nation or know much about it.
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Why Norway?
Let me count the reasons:
Regarding the latter, I was in the midst of a trip that took me from Russia to the Baltic States to Scandinavia in June 1998 and one of the stops was Lillehammer, site of the 1994 Winter Olympics. I visited the Norwegian Olympic Museum, the ski jumping arena and other sites. Those Olympics, you may recall, were where American speed skater Dan Jansen won his first gold medal and the Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding rivalry overshadowed the women’s figure skating like a giant Nordic troll.
That night, I was looking for a place to eat and the person manning the front desk at the Hotel Breiseth suggested a sports bar – Nikkers Sports Bar – where they would be showing the Norway-Brazil Group Stage World Cup match live from Marseille, France.
Norway’s soccer team huge underdog vs. Brazil
Heading into that World Cup, Brazil was a heavy favorite. Norway not so much and, indeed, had played to draws against Morocco and Scotland in its first two matches. Norway needed to beat Brazil to advance. I figured I’d get a bite to eat and leave by halftime with the Brazilians up comfortably.
The place was packed with Norwegians decked out in their red, white and blue colors and I barely found a seat at the end of the bar, prepared to witness a rout. As often happens in sports, the underdog came to play, and Norway held Brazil without a goal in the first half. Of course, Norway had not scored either. You might think this American had finished eating and paid his bill long before the second half got underway, but it was hard not to get caught up in the frenzy in the bar and I found myself cheering for Norway during that 0-0 first half. A group at a nearby table noticed my allegiance for their team and invited this American tourist to join them at the break.
Brazil finally scored at the 78th minute and the noise in the bar dimmed, but no one around me was giving up. The place erupted when Tore André Flo tied the game a few minutes later. With two minutes to play, Flo was pulled down, giving Norway a controversial penalty kick (called by an American referee) that Kjetil Rekdal fired into back of the net. Now it was bedlam and remained that way as Norway held on for a 2-1 victory to advance to the knockout round.
The rest of the evening is a blur. We all kept drinking and singing and drinking and singing. If that bar had a closing time, no one was paying attention. At one point, I told them I was a sports writer and that was one of the greatest soccer matches I’d ever seen and thus was made an honorary Norwegian for the night.
At 5 a.m., they finally threw us all out and as we left, we noticed it was still light in the land of the midnight sun. My newfound soccer mates bid me farewell and wished me well on the rest of my journey. I stumbled back to my hotel, with a new appreciation of what soccer meant to Norway as well as to the rest of the world.
The euphoria was short-lived. Norway fell to Italy in its next match, Brazil would advance to the finals and I returned to the U.S. and put soccer on the back shelf once again.
Doing research for this article, I now know that upset of Brazil was a lock. It turns out Norway is the only team in the world that has played Brazil and never lost, winning two matches and drawing on two other occasions.
If Norway advances in World Cup 2026 to the next stage – it is in Group I with France, Iraq and Senegal and opens vs. Iraq on June 16 – and if they somehow play Brazil, I’m going to have to find a Norwegian bar and relive a magical night in Lillehammer.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Norway stuns Brazil in World Cup ’98 and a Lillehammer bar goes wild
Reporting by Nick Pugliese, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Nick Pugliese, Palm Beach Post | USA TODAY Network
