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Group A concludes with a fascinating contest between an underwhelming Norway outfit and a potentially underrated Philippines outfit. The match takes place at Eden Park in Auckland and kicks off at 8am UK time on Sunday morning.
Norway Women
Despite being one of the fancied teams coming into the tournament, Norway have comprehensively failed to deliver. They haven’t been able to find any cohesion going forward and have looked devoid of ideas throughout. There also appears to be very little chemistry within the squad and having taken just a single point from their opening two matches, their World Cup status is hanging by a thread coming into this third and final group game.
Match has ended
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Norwegian legend Caroline Graham Hansen lashed out in a post-match interview having been left out of the starting XI and asked to start the Switzerland match on the bench by head coach Hege Riise. Although the 28-year old has since apologised for her outburst, it provides further evidence that everything is far from rosy in the Norwegian camp.
With the players clearly not backing Riise, their tournament could be cut short if they fail to beat the Philippines on Sunday morning. They were the better side against Switzerland and outshot their opponents, however, they failed to create too many clear-cut chances.
Norway will go off odds-on favourites and with WSL star Guro Reiten, Arsenal’s Frida Maanum and Lyon’s Ada Hegerberg in their squad, they should be far better than their paltry points tally suggests. They’ve been underperforming for some time and with doubts creeping in about Riise’s ability to motivate, this could be yet another slow and laboured performance.
Philippines Women
Philippines are not here to simply make up the numbers. As one of the only non-fully professional sides in the tournament, very little was expected of them this summer. Despite a 2-0 opening day defeat to Switzerland, they showed that they can battle their way through 90 minutes with a well-earned 1-0 victory over hosts New Zealand.
Philippines are likely to take a similar approach here and given that this tactic worked against New Zealand, they will be looking to take advantage of Norway’s fragile confidence in the final third.
Having won the Asian Cup and having somehow beaten Australia en-route to that success, they should not be underestimated. Nevertheless, they will need to avoid any mistakes and will be relying upon goalkeeper Olivia Davies-McDaniel to keep them competitive.
Head to Head
This is the first-ever meeting between these two sides
Key Betting Stats
- Across the opening four matches in Group A, there have been just four goals scored
- BTTS has landed in just three of the opening 22 matches at the tournament and is yet to pay out in Group A.
- Norway haven’t won any of their last six matches across all competitions
- Sophie Haug took more shots than any other Norway player vs Switzerland (5)
- Frida Maanum committed the most fouls in their last group game (3)
- There has been just one yellow card awarded across Norway’s first two Group A games
- There were 19 corners across Norway’s first two Group A matches
Match Prediction
It has been a struggle for Norway so far and it hasn’t been much fun for the fans. However, they should be able to pick up a victory here, albeit a very narrow one.
Winning Combo
Norway to Win and Under 3.5 Goals
Odds – 10/11 with Betfair’s Bet Builder
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