Carew has sympathy for Iwelumo
by Gordon Pope, 12 October 2008
Norway striker John Carew felt sorry for Chris Iwelumo after his miss at Hampden on Saturday, but was pleased he failed to score.
Iwelumo had a chance to win the match for Scotland, but put the ball wide from five yards and Carew says he’s been there before and knows what he is going through.
“The ball bounced just in front [of Iwelumo] so it’s difficult when the ball bounces just ahead of you,” Carew said.
“It can bounce to the left, to the right or straight, so I understand the situation, but I felt for him then but of course was happy he didn’t score.
“Normally though the ball would go over, not to the side of the goal, normally when it bounces it’s difficult to keep it down so I was surprised to see it go back the way it came but that happens in football sometimes.
“I’ve missed one similar but not that big, but that went over. It was six or seven years ago with Valencia against Ajax in the Champions League but it was far from that big.
“But that’s football, sometimes you miss them but it happens to everybody.”
Carew was excellent for Norway, providing their biggest threat but he paid tribute to Craig Gordon in the Scotland goal for stopping him.
“We were hoping for three points and I think we had a good chance but the ball just wouldn’t go in, but it seemed like Scotland were having the same problem,” Carew explained.
“He [Gordon] was good and had some good saves today. He had a big part in Scotland not losing the game but I can’t forget the big [Iwelumo] chance they had so I can’t say we should have won. But if you take away that big chance we should have won the game.”