Is 2025 finally Norway's year? Why Ada Hegerberg, Caroline Graham Hansen & co set for big Euros after 12 years of tournament woe

It's hard to overstate just how many good individuals are in this Norway team, and it feels important to highlight when discussing their surprising shortcomings. Hegerberg and Graham Hansen are the two stand-out stars, the former a six-time European champion and the all-time top goal-scorer in Women's Champions League history, the latter a three-time Champions League winner who finished as runner-up in the Ballon d'Or voting last year.

But it's easy to pick out so many other names in Gemma Grainger's squad, too. Frida Maanum and Ingrid Engen are also Champions League winners, Maanum just this year with Arsenal and Engen twice with Barca; Guro Reiten has been a stalwart in a Chelsea side that has dominated England for the last five years, helping them win the treble last term; Tuva Hansen was another player who picked up three trophies this past season, at Bayern Munich.

Throw in the Atletico Madrid duo of Vilde Boe Risa and Synne Jensen and the Manchester United trio of Elisabeth Terland, Lisa Naalsund and Celin Bizet and there is no shortage of top-level talent in Norway. Signe Gaupset is one of the most exciting teenagers on the planet, too.

This has rarely translated to international success, though. When Norway reached the final of Euro 2013, there was understandable excitement about the future. After all, both Hegerberg and Graham Hansen were still just 18 years old, with future Chelsea captain Maren Mjelde, who is still part of the team today, named to the Squad of the Tournament.

They've struggled to hit those heights since, though. The next two European Championships have seen Norway fail to get out of the group stage, with the lowlight of those two tournaments certainly the 8-0 thumping at the hands of England in 2022. At the World Cup, the last 16 was as far as the Scandinavian nation would go at the 2015 and 2023 editions, with a quarter-final in 2019 the highlight of the last 12 years for a team with the talent to do much more.

The 2023 Women's World Cup was particularly disappointing. Given Norway went into that tournament with Hegerberg back in the squad, having declared herself unavailable until improvements were made within the national team some six years earlier, her return felt like a sign that progress was being made. But the summer was characterised by chaos and crisis.

There were issues that weren't necessarily under the control of head coach Hege Riise, such as the lack of real defensive depth, but there were decisions made by the former England interim boss that certainly raised eyebrows, such as when she dropped Graham Hansen for Norway's second game, which ended in a draw that put the team in serious danger of going out in the group stages, and her persistence on playing Reiten centrally rather than out wide.

It all came to a head the day before Norway's final group-stage game when NRK reported that several players in the squad had reacted strongly to Riise's leadership style at the tournament, with them unhappy at the "lack of match management, unclear messages, few concrete measures and feedback when Plan A does not work", among other things.

Unsurprisingly, despite Norway winning that final group game to progress to the last 16, Riise left her role following the 3-1 loss to Japan in the knockout stages.

The identity of Riise's successor was something of a surprise, but Grainger certainly ticked the external box that many Norway players reportedly wanted when Riise was appointed. Having come through the England youth set-up, the 42-year-old had spent the previous three years in charge of Wales, whom she couldn't steer to a first major tournament despite coming close.

Grainger admitted at the time that she had "no intention" to leave her post with Wales, but that Norway presented her with "an unexpected opportunity" that she "could not turn down". Given the incredible quality in the Norway squad and the potential this team has to take serious leaps on the continental and world stages, her reasoning made sense.

However, it's not been an easy switch for Grainger. Her record of nine wins, six draws and four losses might suggest otherwise, but those victories were over Croatia, Finland, Albania, Northern Ireland and Switzerland, all nations that are ranked well below Norway. Switzerland are the only one of those five to rank within the world's top 25.

When it comes to the elite nations, though, the kind of which Norway will probably have to beat if they want to progress beyond that first knockout round, they struggle to really pose problems. Indeed, Thursday's 2-0 loss to Sweden was yet another reason to be concerned about Norway's ability to really be a force this summer, with the defence in particular unsettled as the identity of the back four remains uncertain.

For now, though, those in the Norway camp appear to feel differently. Grainger told TV2 that defeat to their neighbours was "a perfect dress rehearsal", while Hegerberg hardly appeared worried when asked about the team's return of just four goals in seven games in 2025. "You can talk a lot about it, statistics. The most important thing is that we try to create results over time and we've done that. There have been good results this year," she told NRK.

"It doesn't take much to get it right," Graham Hansen added. "As long as we start scoring in the European Championships, I'm happy."

Of course, there are plenty of reasons for Norway to be hopeful that this tournament could be the one where they finally live up to some of the hype. For one, that expectation is certainly lower, given recent shortcomings, and their group is kind, with them already having two wins over Switzerland under their belt in 2025. Throw in the remarkable talent that so often draws people to predict big things from this team and they should, surely, be able to navigate the group stage for the first time at the Euros since 2013.

What about after that? Can they lay a glove on some of Europe's elite? Finish top of Group A and Italy are likely to await in the quarter-finals, a team they drew with twice in 2024. Finish second and it is sure to be Spain, the world champions, next up. It's in games like that when Norway will have to score more goals and look more secure at the back in order to be successful.

But that's all much further down the line than this team has been able to reach in the last two Euros. To start, the goal has to be to get out of the group. That should be the bare minimum for this team, really. Achieve that and hopefully Norway can kick on from there, because a team with Hegerberg, Graham Hansen and so many more firing on all cylinders is the kind that any football fan would love to watch.