It was a dream ending for Thorir Hergeirsson as national team coach for Norway. With tonight’s European Championship final victory against Denmark (31–23), the Icelander won his 17th championship medal and his eleventh gold.
It was in 2009 that Thorir took over as national team coach for the Norwegian women’s national team after Marit Breivik. Since then, Norway has only failed to win a medal in three (!) championships. In total, including tonight’s European Championship gold, there were 17 championship medals for Norway during the Icelander’s time as national team captain and eleven gold medals.
But the start of the match suggested that it would be a tough evening for Norway. The Danish team looked to be full of self confidence after the semi-final victory against France, and in goal, Anna Kristensen was as brilliant as she had been throughout the championship. It took almost eight minutes for Norway to score their first goal on a counterattack by Camilla Herrem.
Norway had a very difficult time in the attacking game in the first half. Henny Reistad did not play much defense, and when she did enter the attacking game, it was usually on right back and this made it more difficult than usual for Norway to score goals.
But when the first half was over, Norway was still leading 13–12, and Reistad was the half’s top scorer (four goals scored) together with Denmark’s Anne Mette Hansen.
The decisive blow came early in the second half. Denmark drew a lot of penalties, Rikke Nielsen received her third penalty after 43 minutes, and Silje Solberg continued to be magical in goal (46 in save percentage just over a quarter of an hour into the second half).
With eight minutes left, Norway were leading 28–20 and were just as dominant as they often are in the second half, perhaps after some minor adjustments by a certain Thorir Hergeirsson. Reistad? She ended with eight goals and nine assists.
Norway won 31–23 and are champions again. And Thorir Hergeirsson’s incredible time as Norwegian national team coach is over.