Dembélé Shines as Norway Faces Gamble in World Cup Clash
The World Cup group-stage script promised a Golden Boot duel. Kylian Mbappé on one side, Erling Haaland on the other, two of the game’s most ruthless finishers set to collide under the lights at Boston Stadium.
Instead, one sat, one misfired – and Ousmane Dembélé stole the entire show.
Dembélé rips it up
Haaland’s name appeared on the teamsheet with a jolt: among the substitutes. For the first time since 2024, Norway’s Manchester City superstar did not start a competitive game for his country. What was sold as a heavyweight shootout instantly shifted into a very different spectacle.
France didn’t blink. Didier Deschamps rolled out an attacking lineup that looked every inch a side already dreaming of New Jersey on 19 July and a tilt at the trophy. Within a minute, Mbappé had rattled the underside of the bar, a warning shot that shook the stadium.
The real damage, though, came from the right wing.
Dembélé, Ballon d'Or winner and suddenly unplayable, tore into a Norway side stripped of its spine. In a devastating 25-minute spell in the first half, he completed a hat-trick that turned a supposed contest into a procession. France cruised, 4-1, top of Group I, three wins from three, barely breaking stride.
Norway, already assured of a place in the knockouts, had rolled the dice. They paid for it on the night. The question now is whether they will profit later.
Solbakken’s gamble
Stale Solbakken did not just rest Haaland. He ripped up his entire side.
Ten changes. Only one survivor from the win over Senegal. Captain Martin Ødegaard out. The whole defensive line rotated. A team that had built momentum with back-to-back victories over Iraq and Senegal suddenly looked like a pre-season experiment.
“A no-brainer,” Solbakken called it when pressed on the scale of his selection gamble. He pointed to the data, the medical advice, the players’ own feedback. After the draining win over Senegal, five or six of his starters were “very affected” after 80 minutes, including the entire back four and key midfielders.
The only hesitation, he admitted, came from the stands. Norway’s fans, who have poured time and money into following their team across the United States, wanted Haaland and Ødegaard. They got neither.
On the pitch, the cost of that decision was stark. With Haaland watching from the bench, his stand-in Jørgen Strand Larsen squandered a golden chance to drag Norway back into the game, missing a penalty that would have made it 3-2 after half-time. The miss underlined the gulf between resting your star striker and relying on his understudy in a high-pressure moment.
Before a ball was kicked, Ian Wright had sensed the risk. Speaking on ITV Sport, the former England forward said he was “surprised” by the scale of the changes, especially after Norway had named an unchanged XI for their first two wins. Pat Nevin, on BBC Radio 5 Live, pointed to the sheer physical toll of Norway’s combative style and the looming travel demands across a vast host nation.
The staff clearly agreed. They chose freshness over familiarity.
Haaland’s warning – and Norway’s route
Haaland himself had already cooled the hype around this fixture. Fresh from scoring twice in the 3-2 win over Senegal that sealed qualification, he shrugged off the looming clash with France.
“I couldn’t care too much about that game now,” he said. Norway were through; the job, in his mind, was done. Then came the kicker: “They’re probably going to win against us. They’re probably going to win the whole tournament.”
He was right about the first part. The second remains to be seen, but France look ominous.
By topping Group I, Les Bleus have earned a relatively gentle logistical path. They stay in the region, heading to the nearby New York New Jersey Stadium on 30 June for a last-32 tie against the runners-up in Group F or G. Minimal disruption, maximum control.
Norway’s road is rougher. Based in Greensboro, North Carolina, they now face a 1,100-mile haul to Arlington, Texas, to meet Ivory Coast on the same day. Had they finished top, that journey would have been roughly half the distance.
Nevin summed up the dilemma: lose the game, and you uproot the squad, chase miles across the country, and invite fatigue. Win it, and you risk injuries to a team built on height, power and relentless running.
“It is a very, very physical style that the Norwegians play,” he said. “If they go and try that physical style and lose two players, was it worth it? I suspect they think that’s not worth it and that’s why they’ve done this.”
Norway’s towering “normal side” – with around six players over 6ft 4in or 6ft 5in, Haaland among them – would have asked very different questions of France. More duels. Less space. More chaos in both boxes. Instead, the reshaped XI gave Dembélé room to run riot.
History, hurt and what comes next
The thousands of Norwegian fans inside Boston Stadium did not hide their confusion when the team news dropped. No Haaland. No Ødegaard. Ten changes. Some scratched their heads. Others simply shrugged, stood up, and launched into the now-familiar Viking-style row celebration, determined not to let selection politics ruin their World Cup experience.
They witnessed a slice of tournament history, too. Norway became just the fourth team to make 10 or more changes to their starting XI in a single World Cup match.
Spain did it in 2006, rotating all 11 players against Saudi Arabia and still winning their final group game, only to fall 3-1 to France in the last 16. Belgium went even better with their version of the gamble in 2018: they made 10 changes, beat Japan 3-2 in a dramatic last-16 tie, then knocked out Brazil 2-1 in the quarter-finals before finally bowing to France.
So there is a blueprint for Solbakken to point to. Heavy rotation can work – if the payoff comes in the knockout rounds.
Norway now have their own test. Beat Ivory Coast in Arlington and the decision to rest Haaland and company in Boston will start to look calculated rather than cavalier. Win there, and they earn a return ticket to New Jersey for a last-16 clash on 5 July against the winners of Brazil–Japan.
Lose, and the night Dembélé ran wild in Boston will be remembered very differently: not as a footnote in France’s march through the group, but as the moment Norway blinked, backed away from a fight with the favourites, and never quite recovered.
Was it a shrewd long game or an opportunity thrown away? The answer now lies 1,100 miles from where Dembélé lit up the World Cup.
