Euro 2025: Norway stars Hegerberg and Graham Hansen return for first quarterfinal in 12 years
GENEVA (AP) — They were star prospects aged 18 when Norway last played in the quarterfinals at the Women's European Championship.
Now 12 years on, Ada Hegerberg and Caroline Graham Hansen — a Ballon d'Or winner and a runner-up in the voting, respectively — are team leaders for Norway's first game in the knockout rounds since Euro 2013, against Italy on Wednesday.
'People expect things from us now,' Graham Hansen acknowledged Tuesday, calling their situation today a 'complete difference.'
'We were like 18 and nobody expected nothing from us. We also just wanted to show what we could contribute at the time,' she said while sitting alongside Hegerberg.
'I wasn't playing with much pressure at all (in 2013),' said Graham Hansen, who started in the final that Norway lost 1-0 to Germany. 'I was just going for it.'
Graham Hansen and Hegerberg have combined to score 102 national-team goals, and the first of those at a major tournament was in that quarterfinal game in 2013 in Sweden. Hegerberg got Norway's third in a 3-1 win over Spain with a curling shot that went in off a post.
Both have added one goal each in Switzerland this month to help Norway sweep the group stage with three victories. Hansen's crafty 84th-minute goal sealed a 2-1 win over Finland and sent Norway into the last eight with a game to spare.
'The start couldn't be any better,' Hegerberg said in translated comments. 'We can enjoy that we have such a strong position.'
A new generation also is emerging, and one highly rated prospect made her mark when Norway was already sure to top its group that included Switzerland and rested both standout forwards.
Signe Gaupset, who turned 20 last month, scored twice early in a 4-3 win over Iceland on Thursday. She was youngest player in the tournament's 41-year history to do that and later added two assists for Frida Maanum's goals.
'She's young, and that is additional motivation to take the opportunities you get,' Graham Hansen said of Gaupset, as if describing her younger self. 'She's a big talent.'
Norway coach Gemma Grainger said Gaupset's performance 'wasn't much of a surprise to any of us' though would not be drawn if the Brann winger will retain her place on the left flank to face Italy.
The winner Wednesday in Geneva will return to the city next Tuesday for a semifinal against either Sweden or England.
___
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
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