"Sporting have deadly attacking players who usually do the job for them. They became lightweights; they had two who didn't do the defensive work up front. It was almost sabotage", he said to NRK after the match.
UEFA statistics show that star striker Luis Suarez covered 9.2 kilometres throughout the entire match. As many as three of the Sporting players who played the entire match ended up running less than 10 kilometres.
In comparison, all ten Glimt outfield players who started the match ran more than 10 kilometres. In total, the Norwegian team ran 123.5 kilometres against Sporting's 113.2.
"We were far from where we wanted to be. It's tough for us", said coach Rui Borges at the press conference after the match.
Bodo/Glimt coach Kjetil Knutsen did not use as strong words as Solbakken.
"No, I will not express myself like that. They have two incredibly good players, and we were given a surprising amount of space in the first half", Knutsen said to NRK after the match.
He believes Sporting's top players rose above the rest in the match.
"I feel they put in more work in the second half and were a bit surprised by how solid or how good we were in our free play. That is exactly the scenario we have been working on a lot", Knutsen said.
