‘Unlucky for us:’ Norway fury as ball ‘hits Spidercam’ before England goal
Monday, 13 July 2026
Stale Solbakken, the Norway manager, insisted England’s equaliser in his side’s 2-1 World Cup quarter-final defeat was assisted by Spidercam.
Solbakken, goalkeeper Orjan Nyland and Erling Haaland all argued that Bellingham’s first-half equaliser should not have stood because the ball hit one of the Spidercam wires in the build-up to the goal.
Video replays appear to show that the ball struck a wire from Nyland’s clearance. The impact sent the ball down into the stride of Elliot Anderson, who drove forward down England’s left, eventually playing in Anthony Gordon. His right-foot ball inside to Jude Bellingham was taken brilliantly by the No 10, who beat Torbjorn Heggem before scoring past Nyland.
The camera is suspended from four tension wires attached to the four different corners of the ground and offers broadcasters new angles, including the default angle for penalty kicks.
On the bench, Solbakken and his staff erupted in protest at French referee Clément Turpin.
Asked if Spidercam should have been awarded an assist for the goal after the match, Solbakken said: “Yeah, that was unlucky for us. The ball fell down from the sky. It changed direction, so it became a misunderstanding and it was a bad moment. We can’t do anything about that. We’re not playing the game again, so that’s how it is.”
A Fifa statement on the incident said: “Before England’s goal in minute 45+2 against Norway, the sensor in the Connected Ball showed no peak in the ‘heartbeat of the ball’ when in the air, and therefore no evidence that the ball touched the overhead wire and changed the movement of the ball.”
Asked about Fifa’s reasoning, Solbakken added: “If there’s been no sound or been nothing in the chip, what can I say against that? But the ball dropped straight down. I think it’s pretty clear that it hit it. It was a strange thing.”
Thomas Tuchel, the England manager, said he trusted Fifa’s technology. “There was a chip in the ball who can tell you if a hair touches it. As we know since the Croatia-Portugal game, so they should be able to tell you if it’s happened or not. I was not aware of it. I didn’t see it. I see what Fifa said.”
According to the Laws of the Game, the ball “hitting” Spidercam should have been identified by Turpin as “outside interference” and the game stopped and then restarted with a dropped ball.
Haaland, however, wished England well for the rest of tournament. Asked if wanted his English team-mates at Manchester City to lift the trophy, the striker, who was born in Yorkshire, said: “Of course I want England to do well. I’ve been supporting… I think I got an England jersey before I got a Norway jersey when I was young.”