Injury concern for Arsenal star after ‘cowardly’ tackle from Bernardo Silva | Football
An irate Martin Odegaard was seen hobbling out of the stadium after he was on the receiving end of a woeful challenge from Bernardo Silva in Norway’s 2-1 defeat to Portugal.
Joao Felix and Goncalo Ramos scored either side of Erling Haaland’s 51st-minute strike to maintain Portugal’s 100 per cent record in this year’s Nations League on Sunday night.
Having beaten Wales 1-0 in their opening clash, the Portuguese sit top of Group A4 ahead of their trip to Copenhagen to lock horns with Denmark on Thursday.
However, much of the talk after Portugal’s latest victory surrounded Silva’s poorly timed tackle on Arsenal captain Odegaard in the dying moments of stoppage time at Oslo’s Ullevaal Stadium.
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After picking up possession deep inside Norway’s half, Odegaard found Andreas Schjelderup from the edge of his own penalty area before taking a nasty blow to the ankle from former Manchester City midfielder Silva.
Silva, who joined Real Madrid in the summer, played on as if nothing had happened, but Norway’s skipper was visibly livid with the late challenge, appearing to mouth, ‘F*** you!’ to his opposite number when they came face to face.
The usually calm and collected Odegaard continued his furious protestations long after the incident and it was clear he was struggling as the minutes ticked down in the Norwegian capital.
Odegaard was later seen limping his way through the mixed zone towards the home team’s coach, pictures that will no doubt be a concern to fans of both Norway and Arsenal.
‘He just kicked me down long after I had played the ball away,’ Odegaard told Norwegian television channel TV2 when asked about the incident.
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‘I didn’t understand what he was talking about.’
He continued: ‘It doesn’t belong on a football field. It’s a shame that people do that.’
Asked what he had said to Silva in the immediate aftermath, Odegaard tellingly replied: ‘I don’t think we should do that on TV.’
He later added: ‘I got a knock on my ankle. It probably won’t be good tonight.
‘But I’m betting it will be fine in the next few days.’
Norway defender Leo Ostigard was similarly unimpressed with the ‘ugly’ challenge, which he suggested ‘looked quite deliberate’ from where he was standing.
‘It’s very late. When you see it afterwards on video, it’s very ugly,’ he told reporters.
(Picture: Ane Frosaker/SPP/Shutterstock)
‘It could well have been red. It’s terribly ugly. It’s just terribly bad.’
The centre-back, who plays his club football for Genoa in Italy, added: ‘These are the kinds of things we don’t want happening to our captain.
‘When it comes so long after, it looks quite deliberate.
‘Last year he was unlucky with a lot of injuries and he can’t do anything about those things.
‘They’re going to take him because he’s got the ball a lot in the middle there. Of course they’re frustrated, but you can’t do that.’
Silva appeared less than sympathetic when asked about Odegaard’s reaction to the tackle in the mixed zone, bluntly responding: ‘It’s football, my friend.’
Arsenal supporters were, unsurprisingly, angry and upset with Silva’s tackle and post-match remarks, with one fan account on X writing: This coward has been part of a cheating culture his whole career. Have you ever seen Odegaard like this?’
Arsenal reporter Charles Watts, meanwhile, tweeted: ‘You never see Odegaard this angry.
‘He knows full well Bernardo has gone out purely to hurt him. Understandably furious.’
Odegaard will hope to shake off any injury concerns ahead of Norway’s next Nations League contest away to Wales on Thursday.
Stale Solbakken’s men have picked up three points from their first two matches after defeating Denmark 3-2 in their opening encounter.
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