Swiss national team coach Murat Yakin expressed concerns regarding the condition of the pitch already the day before the clash, describing it as having "holes everywhere" following the Norwegian winter.
Yakin noted that the turf at Ullevaal Stadion was in poor shape, which was a concern for the team's technical style of play. Swiss broadcaster SRF on Tuesday evening noted that the surface could hardly be called "grass".
Erling Haaland felt compelled to apologize for the poor conditions after the game. "The pitch simply wasn't good enough," he said to NRK.no. "The last time I played on a pitch like this was a couple of years ago in the Faroe Islands. But it wasn't even as bad as this."
"The game wasn't destroyed, but not far from it, of course. Switzerland, with respect to them, tries to play, but you see that they make some mistakes that they wouldn't have made if the pitch were good. So it's actually a bit positive for us that the pitch wasn't that good either, so that we could punish them, but it's not good. I said "sorry" to everyone, but this is simply not good enough."
Solbakken also recognized that he had already apologized to Murat Yakin on Monday before the match.