World Cup: A Taste Of Norway

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0:39Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com. The Football Daily at the People World Cup 2026. With Rick Edwards and Lloyd Griffith. Live from L.A. Hello and welcome to the Football Daily with me, Rick Edwards. And me, Lloyd Griffith. That's right. No football today. What are you going to do with yourself? I honestly do not know. I do not know. I have got nothing planned. I feel rudderless. I feel like I have no purpose. Well, yeah. Again. I've got no idea. Honestly, I have no idea what I'm going to do. Yeah, I might read a book. I might sunbathe. Take your book to the beach. Yeah. Have a lovely day.

1:21I will do. Yeah. Look at the look in his eyes. Yeah, that's great. It's actually quite scary. I've not read a book since I've been here. and I brought seven books with me. Amazingly, I also bought seven books and I'm halfway through one. There's one that you basically, I think, just carry around with a handbag. It's like a prop. It's always underneath your arm. Do you know how long it is? 110 pages. Still haven't finished it. That's not a book, that's a pamphlet. It's a novella. It's a novella. You brought a pamphlet to America. So it's also quite early for us today. It's normally, obviously, we record after all of the games, but today it's basically breakfast.

1:55It is. Hence us drinking coffees. We were hurrying to get here, obviously. And I thought we don't have time to have breakfast. Sorry, why were we hurrying to get here? Because you get up really late. I didn't get up really late. I was up, I was dressed, and then you come strolling in. What time did you finish work? What time did I finish work? What time did you finish work? Well, I was working at home on my laptop to about half twelve. Yeah, and then I think you probably got home about an hour later. Yeah, going at two. Yeah. But I finished work at 1.30. You finish work at about 7.30? Yeah. So it is different, isn't it?

2:30But you're hosting a radio show, mate. It's not really work. It is. You're not down the mines, are you? Yeah. Yet. You're not on a trawler, you know what I mean? Looking for a place. Anyway, so we're in a bit of a hurry. I don't think we've got time to have breakfast. You think we do have time. I mean, if you've been up for so long, why haven't you eaten breakfast like half an hour earlier? No, no, no. If you're going to do this. You haven't. So for some reason, you start wolfing down the thing you wolf down every day, and it's really, you're shoveling it in at pace. So it's yoghurt and granola and it's a nice breakfast.

2:59It's a lovely breakfast. Yoghurt and granola berries. If given time. And then you stood, as we really did have to leave, over the bin with the bin open and you were doing one spoonful into your mouth and then one into the bin. Yeah. One for me, one for you. Yeah. Just to try and get through it. And it's one of the most gruesome things I've ever seen. Well, you're obviously not seeing enough gruesome things. Very sheltered life in London, mate. But I was, I got a text message. That's just what happened. No, it is what happened. But I got a text message from you at, I can't remember what time, I presume when you were at the coalface at 1.37 this morning, being like, FYI, I think we should go for breakfast at George's Burger Place before pod tomorrow.

3:39So I get up with plenty of time, got showered, got ready. I'm ready to go. And then he just turns out in his little pants and his little T-shirt. In my pajamas. In his little pants and his little T-shirt. I was like, oh, we're not going to George's Burger Place. you're like, no, I don't think we've got time. I was up doing radio till four this morning. I did shipping forecast and then I did early news after that. I should have been doing the voice, except that. And then he said, oh, we've got a treat waiting outside. And I was like, oh, this is great. I'm thinking we've got a driverless car, maybe one of the little white Jaguars or potentially that box one that I've not seen.

4:13That's nice. The light blue one. Yeah, lovely, the light blue one. I said, oh, that's great. Or maybe we've got, you've got a chauffeur driven car for us this morning. That would be lovely. our day off a lot of money mate that would be absolutely lovely also it doesn't feel like a day off but yeah carry on and then get outside and essentially it's just a hog that you can fit two people on yeah but it's it's a chunky boy it is yeah I specifically picked up a chunky boy last night so we can both ride together we are two chunky boys and we've realised you can fit two chunky boys onto a chunky boy you can it's not we've done it it is possible and it's good fun it's not safe so then I opted to go for a little scooter in the end It's very disappointing.

4:52You threw the treat back in my face. Anyway, we thought we'd do something slightly different with the Norway game coming up on Saturday. We thought we'd just try and get a bit of a taste for Norway as a country. And to help us do that, we're joined by the incredibly patient Eric Stegen and Henning Gabrielsson, who are both Norway fans. Hello, how are you? Good morning, how are you? I mean, Norway are having an absolutely fantastic tournament. and all of the fans and all of the players look like they're really enjoying themselves. And I think I'm quite jealous, Eric, basically. I think that's the secret.

5:24They're just having a great time. And it's amazing. We love seeing it and they play with no pressure. It's fantastic. Well, particularly at this stage now, and you tell me if I'm wrong, but I don't imagine that many people thought Norway were going to get to the quarterfinals even. So therefore, at this point, kind of a free hit. anything yeah I mean I watched every game in the qualifier so I know I were unbelievable yeah so I watched every single game every minute of it so I had a feeling but no one else in the world would watch every Norway game on the qualifier that so I had this feeling all along which is why I got tickets early to to these rounds I saw them beat Brazil and Ivory Coast and it's just been an amazing time and I grew up you know with the national team in the 90s so it takes me when they were good yeah I was like 16 when we beat them in 98 right so it takes me straight back there and it's just like an unbelievable feeling in advance then were you thinking oh actually we're going to do alright here I think but let's not tell anyone yeah you never know right because it's a game at a time and anything can happen as we've seen in this world cup I mean there's been some big upsets right So you don't really know, but everything seems to align for Norway right now, you know, like with a fan base With just all that positivity Americans are starting already to embrace Norway now after they're out, right?

6:53It's it's really fantastic Oh is that the thing? Are they? Oh, yeah, yeah Because they love the underdogs. Similar colours, I guess You want to get involved with the rowing. Yeah, they do. Absolutely. And the underdog story is a Hollywood fairytale Yeah, that's what Americans love. I mean, I'm thinking about doing it at the England game. The rowing. Yeah, it'd be surprising. Yeah. So go on, I'll have a piece of that. If I'm honest, you've got quite the stature of an Oxford rower. So that was the thing you were just training for the Oxford Cambridge boat race. I'm not going to have a paddle. Is it called a paddle?

7:25Or an oar. I think it's definitely called an oar. It must be called an oar. A paddle? I don't know. I've never done it. I was overly optimistic, perhaps. But I mean, are there any team to go to San Siro and beat Italy 4-1? I don't think Italy is that bad these days. They're still up there. I was always optimistic, but I wasn't sure until we got the real big teams to play against. And then you have this glorious figurehead in Erling Haaland, who I think is impossible not to like. he has such a specific way of playing football which is kind of ambling around Can you do your impression? I'm not going to do the impression It was a fantastic impression I did an impression effectively of a meme I don't want to do it again Too many people We've got guests, we've got Norwegian guests Let's do the impression You can put the mic down if you want I'll hold it Just for context here, I didn't want to do this obviously but there was a time at the start of the tournament where all of the rest of the world was sort of becoming familiar with Erling Haaland as an opponent and there was lots of memes going around saying there's nothing scarier than seeing this man there was this shot of him where he's kind of hunched over and running after someone and so I was just doing that Do it properly, yeah go on There we go So you look over your shoulder and you've got the ball and then you see this coming at you.

9:02Just do it under camera, please, so we can get that on socials. No, thank you. It's a shame. I love the guy. I love it after his second goal when he just let the hair down and played for a couple of minutes with the hair down. That's just the coolest thing I've ever seen. He must just be like a folk hero in Norway at this point. Yeah, I mean, he is obviously the best player we've ever had or best striker we've ever had. And I think, you know, I've worked in the entertainment industry here for a long time. And what I say to artists is it's important to know what you're really good at. And, you know, you don't have to be good at everything.

9:36But you've got to be really, if you know what you're really good at, you focus on that. And that's what you bring to your team, to a songwriting session, to, you know, a film set, whatever it is. Know what you're really good at. And that's exactly what he does. He knows exactly what he can do better than anyone. and that's all he does and it's fantastic. We were at the Brazil game and we were, you know, sitting behind the goal where Nilan saved the penalty and where Roland scored the two goals and we just sit there and watch him just strolling around, you know, and he's so good with the offside thing.

10:12He's so good with not being an offside, right? It's incredible. I don't think there's anyone, any striker as good as him when it comes to that and then he just walks and then suddenly he just pounces, you know, it's incredible. Pounce, pounce is the word I've been using. It's like he's just waiting for his prey to relax. I also really like the fact that, talking about prey relaxing, he just chats to the other players as well. And I think a lot of them, especially this World Cup, are like, oh my God, I'm fucking Erling Haaland. And then they're like, yeah. He'll just, he'll just, he'll just. Don't think him and Capriela are having a nice chat, actually.

10:43There's one anomaly. That's side up close. I think he lulls them into a false sense of security. He's like, oh, we're really good friends. And the next thing you know, there's an arm across your chest. And he's just beating you to a head. like oh I'm gonna score a goal yeah just quickly as well what's the um what's the vibe like back in Norway obviously we've seen Norway taking over America and people loving the rowing is there a lot of like hysteria back home about how well you're doing incredible crazy I think there were a hundred thousand people on the main street of Oslo yeah rowing yeah yeah yeah you're not gonna go anywhere and they they went up to the castle to wake not wake up the king three times what because it was during the night.

11:24Sorry, pardon. Bang, bang, bang, bang. It's off again. The Crown Prince actually came out in the end. What? They joined the few rowings. It's not a folk story. What a superb country. It's a great country. The citizens of Norway went and woke up the king. There was this whole debate before the World Cup. Should we wake up the king? Well, yes. But also, can we get the pubs to stay up late and sell beer until early in the morning? National politics. It was like a big national debate. And then finally they say, yes, you can drink beer at 4 a.m. to watch the games. And everyone's like, yeah. Amazing.

12:01That's great. It's totally crazy over there right now. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a much smaller country, five and a half million people. I mean, just having lived in California for so long. Yeah. I mean, it's like the size of Orange County or something, you know? Yeah. And it's just like that national unity and the pride is at a whole other level. I think that sometimes goes under the radar as well, the fact that you are such a small nation. I mean, obviously, I think there's 7.5 million people in London alone. And people talk about Cabo Verde doing so well. But I think people just assume that Norway is just a much bigger country population-wise than it is.

12:35And it's actually 5.6 million. That's it. Brazil, 213 million. Yeah. And we just beat them. And they've won the World Cup five times. And we've beaten them before. We've actually never lost to Brazil. Yeah. Really? Yeah, the stats against Brazil are amazing. Yeah. It's always five, five, one, three, drawn two, is it? Yeah, something like that. And for you guys, having been over here for a long time, it must be really nice seeing Americans kind of fall for your country. Yeah, of course. I mean, it's a beautiful thing. You know, me and my family, we've known Holland because, you know, my kids have seen it for years now.

13:13But then seeing, like, their friends being excited on social media about this. Who's this guy? It's always been good to be Norwegian in America. We have to be honest. I mean, there's a long history with Norwegian immigrants coming from the late 1800s. You know, in 2025, it was the 200-year anniversary of the first Norwegian immigrants to the U.S. Most of them, you know, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, North Dakota, those areas. But they say there's about 5 or 6 million people in the U.S. that are from Norway going back three, four generations. So it's a lot. So it's always been really good to be Norwegian, but this is, you know, taking it to another level.

13:49And is there a big Norwegian community here in LA? Yes, there is actually bigger than you'd think. So I've been involved in a lot of community building for the last 20 years with Norwegian and Scandinavian communities. And I ran the Norwegian Chamber of Commerce for seven years and things like that. And now with the watch parties that we've been organizing, it's taken off completely. You know, we just had a watch party for the Brazil game, which was totally packed. And people are coming out of the woodwork. All these Norwegians that we haven't heard of that are here working for American companies.

14:22And so it's fantastic. Yeah. And also people claiming to be Norwegian, basically. Maybe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll have a piece of this. You just got blonde hair, mate. Okay. You're from Monterey. Also a shout out to the Norwegian Siemens Church down in San Pedro. Absolutely. Sorry, church? Siemens Church. well let's say yeah let's call it the Norwegian church abroad yes well seafarers we yeah yes I don't know why they stuck with that because they just thought it was named after the England goalkeeper David Seaman that's the patron saint yeah Seaman on his shirt my friend got going at a game once it was fantastic so they're doing their non-alcoholic family oriented watch parties in the church Yes.

15:04And we're doing the complete opposite.

15:10Sorry, where is that church? Because I love churches. In fact, the only times I've been to Norway has been to singing choirs. I've been to Bergen. I've been to Tromsø. I've been to Oslo. Other places as well. But we did a little... No, okay. Ollison's. Okay. Yeah. Ostersen's. And other sons. and so I've always because they love choir music in Norway so that's why I've done it a lot of singing a lot of singing so I'd love to go to this church so if you can let me know where it is it's in San Pedro which is about 45 minutes south of here that's the port port of LA okay great well I'm there I might go to the watch party that's probably what you're doing on your day off oh no yeah that's what I'm doing today that's what I'm doing today

16:08This is summer at its peak. Whole Foods Market Summer Fruit Fest is your invitation to eat the season. Fresh, organic, and bursting with flavor. Start your day with peaches and organic blueberries and yogurt. Build a grazing board with fresh fruit, prosciutto, and artisanal cheese. Then fire up the grill with no antibiotics ever proteins and fresh produce. Savour the season. Shop Summer Fruit Fest at Whole Foods Market.

16:37I'm Steve Bratnell, host of Games Gone, the Steve Bratnell podcast. What's my favourite World Cup moment as a fan? I have to say, Michael Owen skinning the hole of the Argentina defence and cracking it in top corner for a very short space of time, I believe. It's an absolutely fantastic goal by Michael Owen! My favourite World Cup player in history. It won't be popular, but I'm going to say Diego Maradona. All right, he handballed it. But the guy was a complete genius. The People World Cup 2026. Listen on BBC Sounds. The Football Daily Podcast at the People World Cup 2026. With Rick Edwards and Lloyd Griffith.

17:21Listen on BBC Sounds. Now, you, I think, have very kindly bought us some Norwegian delicacies to try. Yes. Let's, you know, don't get too excited, but let's call it just a general food. Okay. Yes. But some sort of staple things that, you know, they're not fancy, but they're very Norwegian. There's one food I'm really hoping you brought. Well, I don't know. Well, what is that? Brun? The brown cheese? Oh, the cheese? Yeah. No, we don't have that. I'm so sorry. I tried it as well. It was a bit too short notice, but... Yes, okay. Brun cheese. Yeah, I know. It's great. Yes. But if you come to our watch party, we will have Norwegian waffles with brown cheese.

18:05Yeah. With some strawberry jam on top. It's very delicious. That's how they get us. Our watch party at Joxer Daly's in Culver City. Come on then. Let's have a look. I mean, fantastic chocolate for breakfast. We're going to start with chocolate. We're going to ease you into it a little bit. Can I try and say this? Yeah, yeah. Try to say it. Okay, so this is called Melchschokolade. Hang on, I'll have a go. Melchschokolade. That was very good. Melchschokolade. Melchschokolade. Melchschokolade. Too late. Melchschokolade. Got it first time. This is the number one chocolate, I think, in the world. The premium.

18:45Melchschokolade. Yeah. Quite enjoying you watching. It's tricky. Yeah. Do you want to help? It goes well with coffee, too. Okay, I'm going to have a little sniff first. Yeah. Smells like chocolate. Well, it's delicious. That is very nice. I think it's nice too. I think that's a good word for it. It's not that different to English chocolate. I do think it's nicer. It was quite thick in my mouth. I think that's a sign of a good chocolate. Yes, it's all the oil. Yeah, in a good way? Oil from the North Sea.

19:14All right, lovely. Okay, so the next thing is very opposite. This is what we call a... Yeah, what do you think that's called? Flatbrot. How do you say it? Flatbrot. Flatbrot. Flatbrot. Do you want to open it? or yes i can yeah you do it one-handed what do we eat this with well so this is kind of like a crisp bread where you can put some stuff up yeah actually okay so this is cheese paste yes this is norwegian caviar which is not it's not like russian caviar but it is i would say crushed what did you what did you say it's codro okay oh i love codro let's get into the fish huh This you could try and put that on.

19:55Yeah, yeah, yeah. Squeeze it on there, please, boy. Okay, here we go. I'm just going to pour out, and what, just like a line across the... Well, hang on. Do the flag. Do the Norwegian flag. That's lovely. And I can almost guarantee you that Horlan and the God and every other player grew up on this.

20:15That is absolutely beautiful. That was so nice. Oh, I was glad to like it. I mean, that is salty. Yeah, so this caviar we use either just like you're doing now or you can put it on bread. You can put it on top of a lot of Norwegians. They do like buttered bread, white cheese, some kind of white cheese, and then this on top of it. It's really good. Yeah, and it's a staple. It's like something you bring for lunch. School kids, they pack their own sandwiches with this stuff on it. So you think this would do well in England? yeah I think I think it's it's really tasty and really tasty I think people might be put off if you say it's sort of cod row so pureed cod row but if you just gave it to them I think they'd I think they'd go for it is that okay enough is that yeah yeah no it's never too much come on come on not disrespect the guests I think the difference between caviar and Norway versus other places is like we grow up on this stuff.

21:25So it's not like a kind of high-end food. No, it's just like a breakfast, lunch, whatever. It's pretty much the opposite, really. It's like a standard thing on the breakfast table. Yeah, because for us, like caviar sounds quite posh. Oh, gosh, yeah. If you're eating caviar, it's caviar and champagne. Okay, so the next one up, this is where we get into some serious stuff. Good. Okay. We call this in English, we call this mackerel in tomato sauce. Yeah, yeah. Makaille tomate. Makaille tomate. So, yeah, it's another one of those things that it's something kids. I have three kids, Norwegian American kids.

22:01Mom is American. I'm Norwegian. And thankfully, I've gotten all three of them to like this stuff. And how are we? Are we on the flatbread? Are we on? We're on the toast. Oh, we're on the toast. Okay. Lovely. We're on the toast. We're on the toast. These are various tinned mackerel in the UK. Yeah, yeah. But this looks a bit more extravagant. Butter or no butter? I would say no butter, and then you put mayo on top of it. Mayo on top. Again, that's another tube mayo. This is another tube mayo. Everything comes out of a tube. We like tubes in Norway. How are you saying that? Månås. Månås. Månås. Månås.

22:36Månås. Månås. Månås. All right, so you're in charge of mayonnaise. You just put a chunk on the toast like that. That is lovely. And how often will you eat this mackerel? Yeah, kids eat this for breakfast. I used to have pilchards. Pilchards on toast. What's pilchards? Pilchards, another fish. Yeah, pilchards, yeah. And again, I grew up in Grimsby, which is a big fishing town, so we were kind of brought up on fish. But tinned fish, I just, I love it. Okay, I'm going to have a little mouth of this. That is lovely. That is good. It is strong. It's mackerel, isn't it? So where does football sit in terms of popularity in Norway, relative to other sports?

23:15We obviously know you for winter sports a lot as well. Football is by far the most popular sport. It has been for a long time. I've heard the Norwegian ski team being sort of annoyed by it. What about us? The future of cross-country is like, yeah, okay, we're going to be the top probably for a good little while. But, yeah, football is definitely what the kids are doing. And the English Premier League is super popular in Norway. Yeah. And has been for so many decades, I think, since the 70s. Yeah. Do you have a Premier League team? Absolutely. Liverpool. There we go. Ever since the 90s, I grew up with a Norwegian national team.

23:52I was cheering for whatever Premier League team had more Norwegians on it. So when Oskar Bob now went from City to Fulham, I'm like, all right, now we have Sunderbarger and Oskar Bob on Fulham. I guess I'm a... You're a Fulham guy. Yeah. So, but then... Lovely team. So cool. But we haven't seen anyone like Hollon before. No. I mean, just since he was a teenager, he's been scoring a ton of goals. And how are you saying his name? We say Hollon. It's like the Norwegian way. So how do you say his full name? Erling Hollon. So here's the difference. You're from Bergen. I'm from Oslo. Here's the... Erling Hollon.

24:28Erling Braut Hollon, I would say in Oslo. But he himself was at Erling Braut Hollon. Yeah. More similar to your accent. Yeah, Erling Braut Hollon. I would say he's from Manchester exactly so that's why he's like kind of like when people say early hall and they're like he's like whatever you know but I mean he goes with the flow though he says Holland himself yeah yeah now because everyone else does so yeah just like I'm Henning Gabriel's near not attending obvious yeah and you just accept that I suppose yeah I mean at Starbucks I'm Kenny you know Henning yeah all right Henry yeah exactly Henry, Kenny, whatever.

25:09No one really gets to choose their own name in Starbucks. That's just the truth. My name's Lloyd. I got called a Roy the other day. I was like, I'll take that. I'll take that. You look like a Roy. Yeah, big time. Yeah. What's the kind of football fan experience like in Norway compared to the UK? I mean, obviously, completely different here. But is it as passionate week in, week out, would you say? Yeah. I think people are passionate about their local teams, for sure. I do think so. There's a strong culture around football at the local grassroots level in any town. Yeah, I grew up in Nesel, right south of Oslo.

25:45We don't have, you know, we were in the fourth division growing up. It was still a big club and a lot of passion. And my dad was a coach and, you know, so a lot of time spent playing football and cheering for the local teams. And the team in Bergen is called Brunn, which means fire. And they are a red team as well. So I have a thing with red teams, I guess. They've always been really the big team for Bergen, and people are super passionate about them in Bergen. I mean, fire is a great name for a team, by the way. We can learn, I think, it's better than Grimsby. What are you on about? No, I'm just saying.