Norway manager St\u00e5le Solbakken has moved to ease concern over Erling Haaland after the forward was withdrawn early, framing the decision as the result of exhaustion rather than anything more serious. He pointed to what he called a relentless workload, saying it is all part of an increasingly punishing football calendar.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are many players who are really exhausted,\u201d Solbakken explained. \u201c[Sander] Berge and [Martin] \u00d8degaard are practically scraping rock bottom. Erling was digging deep for a long time. I think he took a real beating and served as an excellent target man. We were hoping for 60, and he managed 65. That\u2019s a lot of positives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Going into the match against Portugal in Porto, Haaland already knew he might not complete the full game. There was some thought given to protecting him for the second half, but that plan was quickly ruled out.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe put in a good 60 minutes today,\u201d Solbakken reasoned. \u201cHe played two full 90-minute matches against Denmark and Portugal. He was tired against Wales. That\u2019s why we had a heart-to-heart yesterday. We went through the various possibilities.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe could perhaps have played the last 45 minutes against Portugal. That was a topic of discussion. But he has a really bad feeling about that kind of thing. He\u2019s had experiences where he was brought on in the League Cup, and it didn\u2019t go particularly well. I\u2019m very pleased that he managed to dig deep and deliver a good 60 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Norway\u2019s internationals complete and Manchester City not back in action until Sunday\u2019s trip to Anfield, Haaland now has a brief break. Norwegian outlet Dagbladet reported that he travelled from Portugal to M\u00e1laga for some warm weather after the fixture.<\/p>\n
Solbakken was blunt about the broader strain on players, especially those in the Champions League and those with limited rest after major summer tournaments. \u201cIt\u2019s a grueling schedule,\u201d he lamented. \u201cFor those playing in the Champions League who\u2019ve had little time off, it\u2019s more brutal than for the others. Especially for the players who didn’t get a summer break because of the World Cup and going deep into the tournament. We did that.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving so little vacation and then heading straight into high-intensity leagues\u2014and then you have this international break on top of that\u2014it\u2019s not about making excuses. It\u2019s just insane. Especially for the smaller nations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Haaland remains near the top of the minutes table despite the heavy load, sitting third on 2,789 minutes. He is, as the draft notes, a victim of his own success: too important to leave out, and now feeling the strain that comes with that demand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Solbakken blamed a brutal schedule after Haaland was withdrawn early in Norway’s win over Portugal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21465,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961,238],"tags":[1162,242,180],"class_list":["post-21466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-manchester-city","tag-analytics","tag-injury","tag-player-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}