Can Norway finally fulfil potential and end long wait for success at Euro 2025?
Stop there. Hold that thought. Something is stirring. Norway topped Group A at Euro 2025 with three wins from three and face Italy on Wednesday in the quarter-finals. Is this the summer when Norway will deliver on their potential, offered not just by Graham Hansen, Reiten and Hegerberg but Arsenal's Frida Maanum and players from Manchester United, Atlético Madrid and Lyon? And with an English head coach in the former Wales manager Gemma Grainger.
Norway are the second-most successful team in Women's Euros history, with two titles, but have not lifted this trophy since 1993. So far, though, 2025 has been a year of long waits ending in football, whether it was Real Madrid's women's team winning their first clásico, an English women's team lifting a European title for the first time since 2007 or Inter qualifying for the Women's Champions League for the first time.
In the men's game, Crystal Palace, Newcastle and Tottenham ended trophy droughts, Paris Saint-Germain got their first men's European Cup and Harry Kane won a trophy. Rory McIlroy finally got his Masters. Last month, South Africa's men's cricket side won their first global trophy in 27 years. Maybe there is something in the air this year. Maybe, 20 years after the slogan 'good things happen to those who wait' began to be phased out in a well-known Irish stout's advertising, 2025 is the year when that comes true.
Norway have been waiting 25 years for international women's football success, since their Olympic gold in Sydney in 2000, and have waited 30 years to hoist major trophy, since winning the 1995 Women's World Cup, at a time when the star of their team was Hege Riise, who temporarily preceded Sarina Wiegman in the Lionesses dugout. In the past two Euros they crashed out at the group stage.
The former Tottenham and Norway men's national team goalkeeper Erik Thorstvedt, who got 97 caps and is in Switzerland as a pundit for the Norwegian broadcaster TV.2, says the past few tournaments were 'a bit disastrous' but explains: 'I think we have become a bit of a victim of the general rise in level of women's football. Because we were quite early to it, we had lots of girls playing football quite early, so we had an advantage, but now when the big nations really go for it, and they become professional and you have academies in Spain and stuff like that, it's becoming more difficult to beat those teams. And now you have all the other late developers that are maybe in population a bit bigger than Norway, so it becomes difficult to beat them too.'
During this tournament, Norway have beaten Switzerland, Finland and Iceland by a one-goal margin. Thorstvedt was not hugely impressed by the performances in their first two wins but said: 'I'm so much more optimistic and so much happier now after the third match because, against Iceland, we played really well. It was like: 'Take these shackles off my feet so I can dance.' Suddenly it was enjoyable, suddenly it was like we have got a good team. There was no pressure because we had already won the group, so that mentality might have played into it, so I just hope we get to see a Norway team that plays with freedom.'
Italy are higher in Fifa's world rankings than any of those three group opponents and are on an impressive run. Thorstvedt said: 'I've seen all of Italy's good matches and they're a good team. If Norway can beat Italy and reach a semi-final you can't argue with that – it's a humongous success. If we lose to Italy, I think the final verdict will be determined by the way we lose, maybe, whereas if we win that would be totally incredible. Gemma Grainger seems to have created a good atmosphere in the group and things are looking good.'
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