Norway is basically locked into the World Cup! Italy needs two consecutive wins + recovering 19 goals to have a chance of comeback

Hupu News on November 14th. In the 9th round of the European group stage of the World Cup preliminaries, the Norwegian team defeated Estonia 4-1 in a key victory. It is now almost guaranteed to qualify for the 2026 World Cup. With the victory in this round, Norway leads Italy by 6 points with one more game, taking the initiative to qualify.

According to the rules, if Italy fails to win in the later match against Moldova, Norway will lock in the spot in advance. Even if Italy defeated Moldova one after another and defeated Norway again in the final round of direct dialogue, so that the two sides had equal points, due to the huge 19-goal difference between the two teams, it was still almost impossible for Norway to be reversed, and the promotion situation was very stable.

For Norway, this result is of great significance. The last time the team appeared in a world series was the 2000 European Cup, and the last time they participated in the World Cup was the 1998 World Cup in France. Now, under the leadership of a new generation of leading players such as Haaland, Norway is making great strides towards the long-awaited World Cup stage.