Spain 3-0 Norway: Three Things We Learned

Spain battered Norway 3-0 over the weekend to give themselves a great start to UEFA Euro 2024 qualification.

Countries across the continent have spent the last few days kickstarting their road to Germany. Some will obviously favour themselves to succeed more so than others, but this part of the process always throws up a few surprises.

We didn’t see any on Saturday, though, as the Spaniards tore through Norway with ruthless efficiency. Today, we’ll be taking a look at a few of our biggest takeaways from the action.

The unspoken hero

It’s always important to bring through new talent, and more often than not, it’s younger talent. However, former Newcastle and Stoke forward Joselu broke that trend in this particular encounter. The 32-year-old, who is the oldest player to debut for Spain since 2006, scored twice in two minutes on his first ever appearance for the international team. If that doesn’t show that they’re willing to think outside of the box, we don’t know what will.

Norway’s development

The simple fact of the matter here is that Norway still have a long way to go before becoming the team many believe they can be. They had just 36% possession in this matchwith six shots compared to Spain’s 13, despite the fact that they were the ones chasing the game from the 13th minute onwards. Sure, you could say they didn’t have Erling Haaland at their disposal, but we’re not sure what he would’ve been able to muster up anyway given the lack of service.

Lots of time to prepare

Between now and Euro 2024, Spain still have a lot to prove – but in Group A, it feels as if they have plenty of time to make the necessary adjustments. Norway, Scotland, Georgia and Cyprus will all provide stiff resistance, but this is their group to lose and nobody can deny that. It’s all about slow and steady development over time and if they can start to fine tune the squad, they’re on their way to big things next year.