Norway's First Quarter-Final, England's Recurring Habit
A small, oil-wealthy footballing nation meets England's habitual quarter-final malaise in Miami
There is a particular strain of English exceptionalism that assumes history owes it a semi-final, and Norway, mild-mannered, oil-rich, statistically unheralded Norway, are about to test that assumption in a Miami stadium bowl that has never previously hosted anything quite so freighted with meaning for either party. This is Norway's first quarter-final at a major tournament in their entire history, a fact that bears repeating slowly, because nations of 5.4 million people do not routinely find themselves here, and certainly not this one, whose knockout record against fellow Europeans reads like a cautionary tale from 1938 and 1998, both defeats to Italy, both entirely forgettable. England, conversely, have made a career of turning up to these occasions and finding new, inventive ways to leave early. Saturday is less a preview than an audit of two footballing identities colliding at the point where one nation's improbable ascent meets the other's chronic underachievement.