The world’s smallest violin is playing for national team manager Ståle Solbakken and other Europeans who are provoked by an American halftime show.
The halftime show is generating strong reactions: “A very bad idea”, write Aftenposten’s journalists Nicholas Bergh and Øystein Tronsli Drabløs.
The American tradition is on the verge of dominating the World Cup’s biggest showcase. This is causing unease in Europe and provoking a number of Europeans, among them Ståle Solbakken and Noel Gallagher.
Tell us something we do not already know. What is it, exactly, that does not provoke the great men and cultural elites when it comes to America, now that Trump is back in the White House?
Let’s Go Haaland
One almost gets the impression that, in the end, it is the President himself who provokes the sensitive and whining men on the other side of the Atlantic.
Had Biden or Kamala been in power, we imagine Solbakken and others would have kissed the ground the moment they set foot on American soil. And when American spectators shouted “Fuck Joe Biden!”, they would surely have preferred to hear “Let’s Go Haaland”.
Nobody likes whiny people. Nobody likes whiny women. But least of all do people like whiny men. And Ståle Solbakken is now beginning to come across as a whiny little bitch. I do not normally follow football very closely, but is he always like this?
He was already whining after the World Cup draw and called it a “freak show”. But he was not alone in this bitchy attitude.
For football expert Kristoffer Løkberg, it was apparently downright awful to witness Trump and Infantino being allowed to use the stage before many hundreds of millions of people for what Løkberg called self-promotion and self-glorification.
But what is it about football and these drama queens?
It certainly does not suit the leader of Norway’s victory-hardened Vikings. Man up, Americans say to someone who ought to handle things like a strong man. We would rather say: Viking up, Solbakken. Nobody likes a whiny national team manager.
Nine Minutes in Hell
The length of the halftime break is causing concern, according to Aftenposten. The Laws of the Game allow a maximum of 15 minutes, but the halftime show during the Club World Cup in the United States lasted 24 minutes.
Good Lord! Does this mean that the poor multi-millionaire footballers will have to wait an extra nine minutes?
FIFA has not confirmed how long the break will be, Aftenposten writes. But NRK is preparing a mixture of entertainment and match analysis during halftime.
Just wait; that segment will probably be about something Trump did during the break, perhaps for self-promotion and self-glorification, with commentary from Ståle Solbakken, afflicted by TDS.
“I am against everything that is new. Apart from the back-pass rule and the offside rule, I am against everything,” national team manager Ståle Solbakken told Aftenposten, with a twinkle in his eye.
A twinkle in his eye? Did they perhaps mean Ståle’s sad “poor me” eyes?
Solbakken calls himself a “traditionalist”, and one wonders how he copes living in a Norway where traditions disappear faster than we can say “stealth Islamisation” (snikislamisering).
The Americanisation of the World Cup in America
But the national team manager is not alone. This time, it is the Americanisation of the World Cup that is at the centre of attention, Aftenposten continues.
The Americanisation of the World Cup in America. Imagine that! Does anyone remember the “Norwegianisation” of the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer in 1994?
The greatest Winter Olympics ever, said Juan Antonio Samaranch. And indeed it was. But good Lord, how Norwegian it was, and the whole world loved it.
Aftenposten dug deep to find other Europeans dissatisfied with the halftime show. They had to go all the way to England to find Oasis guitarist and songwriter Noel Gallagher, who said football has worked perfectly for hundreds of years and now suddenly there has to be a halftime show.
Yet another whiny little bitch-elitist with his priorities in order.
Of all the tragedies and upheavals taking place in his homeland, he is concerned about a halftime show during a World Cup final that does not suit his tastes.
And thus we arrive at the heart of the hysteria.
In Europe, many believe that two halves of 45 minutes provide more than enough entertainment. Anything else is portrayed as an attack on the soul of football, its culture and almost on European civilisation itself.
The length of the break is enough to make people and Aftenposten reach for the smelling salts.
The Laws of the Game are crystal clear, the newspaper writes in dramatic bold type to underline how serious this is:
– Players are entitled to a halftime interval not exceeding 15 minutes. This may only be altered by the referee.
You Go, Kristoffer Ajer
Fortunately, there are real Vikings in the national team. Aftenposten asked national team player Kristoffer Ajer how it would have been to wait 25 minutes in the dressing room for Shakira to finish.
“It would have been no problem at all!” says Kristoffer Ajer.
While others seem to believe that nine extra minutes in the dressing room constitute a violation of the Geneva Conventions, Ajer shrugs and gets on with his life.
“We are free to decide what we broadcast during halftime, and it will probably be a mixture of highlights, interviews and segments from the show,” NRK sports editor Espen Olsen Langfeldt writes in an email to Aftenposten.
Stay tuned; perhaps we will get a special segment in which the complainers Solbakken and football expert Løkberg can relive the pain and suffering they have endured with a World Cup on Trump’s home turf.
The world’s smallest violin is also playing for Asbjørn Slettemark, film and music critic at Aftenposten. But perhaps it is not surprising that he is a complainer, since he hosts a podcast about German football called “Dritte Halbzeit”.
Slettemark believes the “halftime extravaganza” is a very bad idea. It extends the break and continues FIFA’s relentless effort to make football as a commercial television product more important than supporters in the stadium.
Where have you been, Slettemark?
As if football has not already been a commercial television product for decades. With sponsors, advertising and million-pound contracts everywhere. But suddenly, when there is an American halftime show featuring Shakira, it is apparently a tragedy for the soul of football.
Misery Loves Company
The world’s smallest violin plays ever more sadly for Slettemark. He talks about football as though it were a funeral, and as though music and dancing were crimes against humanity.
He tells Aftenposten that football halftime intervals have traditionally been free of entertainment, a quiet moment when one can buy Kvikk Lunsj, hot dogs or even beer.
Slettemark therefore believes we are witnessing a “culture clash” between the United States and Europe.
“The moment there is a break in the NBA or NFL, the sound system is blasting, with singers, dancers and competitions.”
In Germany, of course, they know what a real break is. Because in Europe, one is so much more advanced and cultivated than those primitive Yankees.
“The moment you try entertainment there, even just music over the PA system, the fans go bananas. ‘Halftime should be halftime,’” says Slettemark.
Misery loves company, as they say. What a pitiful group of whining men!
But as Dorothy said in “The Wizard of Oz”:
“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
And you are not in Germany anymore either. Or Norway. The World Cup final is being played in the United States. And Americans do things the American way.
So put down the brown cheese and Kvikk Lunsj, pack away the whining, and enjoy the show!