UEFA Women’s Euro 2022: How Norway Women dominated Northern Ireland Women with an excellent attacking performance – tactical analysis

UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 kicked off at Old Trafford on Wednesday, July 6 with an opening match between England and Austria, a solid tactical clash which ended with a single goal from Beth Mead. This game is directly related to both Norway and Northern Ireland since the four teams share the same Group A. Therefore, the battle between England and Norway has already started and at the moment both teams were able to pass their first test.

Norway succeeded in beating Northern Ireland 4-1 in a match that saw the Norwegians perform very well, especially from an attacking perspective. This win puts both England and Norway in the top two spots with a slight advantage for Norway in terms of goals. Norway will have to continue believing in their abilities and perform well in order to protect their lead of the group when they meet England in their next match, knowing that the mission will be complicated for both teams.

Afterwards, the winner of England versus Norway will surely have a great advantage over the others to finish at the top of the group, and that’s why it will be a decisive match. At the same time, Northern Ireland will have to face Austria in their upcoming match and they will have to win in order to make up for their first loss.

Nevertheless, Austria proved against England that they are not an easy team to beat and that they are well organised, especially in the defensive phase. Therefore, Northern Ireland will have to do their best from both the attacking and the defensive perspective in order to gain a point or potentially three.

In this tactical analysis, we will focus on analysing Norway’s performance and tactics in their match against Northern Ireland in order to explore their strengths and shed some light on what went wrong.

Lineups

Norway started the match according to the 4-2-3-1 formation with Guro Pettersen as a goalkeeper, Anja Sønstevold, Maren Mjelde, Manchester United’s Maria Thorisdóttir and Manchester City’s Julie Blakstad in defence, Frida Maanum and Barcelona’s Ingrid Syrstad Engen as central midfielders, Amalie Eikeland and Chelsea’s Guro Reiten on the wings while Caroline Graham Hansen played as an advanced playmaker just behind the team’s striker, Ada Hegerberg.

On the other side, Northern Ireland opted for the 3-4-3 formation with Jacqueline Burns as a goalkeeper, Julie Nelson, Sarah Mcfadden and Kelsie Burrows in defence, Abbie Magee and Demi Vance as wing-backs, Nadene Caldwell and Chloe McCarron as central midfielders while both Lauren Wade and Simone Magill played on the wings and formed the attacking trio with the striker Rachel Furness.

Norway’s attacking performance

Norway started the match with a clear intention to play attacking football and press high on Northern Ireland in order to have more possession and threaten their goal extensively as early as possible. They were able to shoot 19 times with 10 shots on target as they had 60.36% of possession, which proves Norway’s relative domination in this match. What is striking though is that Norway were not good enough in duels and especially in offensive duels as they won just 37.8% of these.

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