“Brazil definitely has the greatest pressure on them on Sunday,” Rekdal told Reuters, saying Norway’s long-awaited return to the knockout stage had already made this tournament a success for the team, while anything less than victory for Brazil would be seen as a national humiliation.
On paper, it is a mismatch: the five-time world champions against a nation ending a 26-year tournament drought. But Brazil have faced Norway four times and never won, and their last World Cup meeting remains one of Norway’s most cherished sporting memories.
Rekdal scored a cool 89th-minute penalty at Marseille’s Stade Velodrome to secure a 2-1 victory over an already-qualified Brazil in 1998 and send Norway into the knockout stage.
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He believes that result, and Brazil’s winless record against Norway, may still sit somewhere in the minds of their opponents.
“That fear will always be there — the dread that they are going to slip up against Norway once again,” he said.
'A lot of good work'
For Norway’s new generation, led by Erling Haaland, Martin Odegaard and Antonio Nusa, 1998 was history rather than baggage, he said.
“I don’t think Haaland and Odegaard are thinking about Norway beating Brazil in ’98,” Rekdal said. “They do not need the ghosts of the past to believe they are equal to the five-time world champions; their everyday reality at the absolute summit of European club football has already taught them that.”
Norway’s progress, Rekdal said, was not simply the product of a gifted crop of players but of long-term work across the country’s football system.
“A lot of good work has been done in Norwegian football for many years now, with systematic training, academies popping up, better coaches and steering players at an earlier age,” he said.
“The work being done is very solid, and the good players are signed by foreign clubs quite early, so they take that next step when they are ready.”
Rekdal said the current generation, built around players competing regularly at the highest level in Europe, were stronger than the Norway side that reached the last 16 in France 28 years ago.
Brazil would still begin as favourites, he said, but Norway’s attack gave them a route to another upset. Haaland had become one of the most feared forwards in world football, while Odegaard’s creativity and Nusa’s pace offered Norway a threat far removed from the disciplined, counter-attacking side that frustrated Brazil in 1998.
Now manager of Norwegian top-league club Aalesund FK and working as a World Cup pundit, Rekdal will watch from the studio as Norway attempt to repeat the result that made him a national hero.
His prediction for Sunday's game is unequivocal. “2-1 to Norway,” he said. “History repeats itself in football. It actually does quite often.”