The Norway women's national football team () represents Norway in international football, and is controlled by the Norwegian Football Federation. The team is former European, World and Olympic champions and thus one of the most successful national teams. The team has achieved less success since the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup. The best result since then was in the UEFA Women's Euro 2013, when they were runners-up.
History Norway women's national football team emerged in 1978 for the Nordic Championship tournament. Having little culture for official clubs and a series system, their early history consisted of losing to their neighbors and eventually beating Northern Ireland for their first win.
A power to be reckoned with Norway's women's national football team rose in success throughout Europe. They beat England, France and Switzerland. In the first qualification for the European Competition for Representative Women's Teams (later renamed UEFA Women's Championship), Norway played opposite Sweden, Finland and Iceland. Norway lost both matches against Sweden, but beat Finland in both matches against them. Sweden later won the Euros.
The start of the golden years Norway later lost 0–5 against Denmark. Norway beat Denmark and West Germany in the qualification for the 1987 Euros. Norway was the host for the four matches. Norway beat Italy in the semifinals and met Sweden in the finals, where they won 2–1 and claimed their first title.
Norway beat Sweden again in a final in 1988 FIFA Women's Invitation Tournament, in China. At the 1989 Euros, Norway made the finals against West Germany, but lost 1–4. After that loss, the coaches resigned, leaving the helm to Even Pellerud, who saw Norway progress to the 1991 FIFA Women's World Cup. Before the first official world cup, Norway made it to the fourth (and Norway's third in a row) final of the Euros, where Norway again met Germany, who won in extra time. In the World Cup, Norway made it to the finals, where they lost to the United States women's national soccer team.
Following that, Pellerud led the team to the 1993 Euros. Norway beat Denmark in the semifinals and Italy in the finals, winning their second Euros. Norway followed up with winning the inaugural edition of 1994 Algarve Cup.
World Champions and beyond In the 1995 World Cup in Sweden, Norway won all their matches in the group stage. In the quarter-finals Norway won 3–1 score against Denmark. In the semifinals, Norway won 1–0 score against the US and reached the finals against Germany. Having lost two Euro finals, Norway were not among the favourites, but they defeated Germany by two goals scored within the space of four minutes, becoming world champions. Pellerud resigned shortly afterwards.
The first women's football in the Olympic Games was considered equal with the World Cup in rank. Norway qualified automatically because of their win in the World Cup. Norway drew with Brazil, and beat Germany and Japan, proceeding to the semi-finals. There they lost to the US after extra time, but won the bronze medal after defeating Brazil.
At the 1997 Euros, Norway only made it to the semi-finals. Norway eased through to the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup, where they beat all their opposition in the group stage. They met Sweden in the quarter-finals and won with 3–1, but lost in the semifinals to China, who won 0–5. In the bronze final, Norway lost to Brazil on penalties.
Before the 2000 Olympics, Norway set its own attendance record at Ullevaal Stadion, when a crowd of 15,762 witnessed a 2–1 victory over the United States. Norway was not among the biggest favourites to win the Sydney Olympics. They started off losing to the US, but picked up by beating Nigeria and China, the latter by one goal. In the semi-finals, Norway beat Germany with a goal by Tina Wunderlich after Germany pressed the Norwegians for the better part of the match. The final saw Norway against the US in the match. Tiffeny Milbrett took the lead for the US, but Norway equaled the score by Gro Espeseth. Norway took the lead in the match via a header by Ragnhild Gulbrandsen, but Milbrett scored in stoppage time to prolong the match to extra time with golden goal. Norway scored the winner. The coach Per-Mathias Høgmo quit after achieving this feat.
Decline Åge Steen took over as coach, but under his tutelage, things went from top to mediocre. At the 2001 Euros, Norway's play was lackluster, and while making it to the semi-finals, Norway lost to Germany. In the 2003 World Cup, Norway lost 1–4 to Brazil in the group stage before losing to US in the quarter-finals. As Greece was arranging the 2004 Summer Olympics, there were only two additional spots for European teams which were taken by Sweden and Germany, who had both proceeded to the finals. Steen continued for another year, as stipulated by his contract, but was replaced in late 2004.
Brief recovery Under the new coach, Bjarne Berntsen, Norway reached the final of the 2005 Euros with a 3–2 win over Sweden in extra time in the semifinal. Germany again defeated Norway to win the championship. Norway continued to achieve reasonable results except in the Algarve Cup where the results started to slip.
Norway qualified for the 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup in China. They drew with Australia and narrowly beat Canada, and then a 7–2 win over Ghana took them to the top of their group. Norway then progressed further by beating China 1–0, but lost 0–3 to Germany in the semifinal. In the bronze final, Norway lost 1–4 to the US to finish in fourth place in the World Cup, which qualified them to enter the Beijing Olympics. Norway's top scorer Ragnhild Gulbrandsen was awarded the Bronze Boot behind Marta of Brazil and Abby Wambach of the United States.
At the 2008 Olympics, Norway beat the US, then lost to Japan 1–5 and went out in the quarter-finals against Brazil, where they lost with the score of 1–2. Following the end of the tournament, after returning to Oslo from China, Berntsen was criticized for telling Lise Klaveness that she had no future in the national team under his tutelage, a gross error that he later admitted. Two months later, in October, five players refused to play for the national team, saying that playing under Berntsen was too much of a burden. With a reduced team, and after some less controversial resignations, Norway produced a relatively good result at the 2009 UEFA Women's Championship by beating Sweden 3–1 in the quarter-finals, losing 0–4 against Germany and a modest 1–0 against Iceland and 1–1 against France. After the championship, Berntsen's contract ended.
Landsem Eli Landsem, the first woman coach and the first coach with experience of coaching women's football, took over at the end of 2009. Under her tutelage, some of the players who had previously elected not to play returned. The team qualified to play in the 2011 FIFA World Cup after winning all but one of the matches in their qualification group. Norway however failed to reach the quarter-finals for the first time in its history after losing to Brazil (0–3) and Australia (1–2). As a result, they also failed to qualify for the 2012 Summer Olympics.
The next task was qualification to the 2013 European Cup competition, with Norway in Group 3 with Iceland, Northern Ireland, Belgium, Hungary and Bulgaria. The team initially lost 3–1 to Iceland and Northern Ireland, but in 2012 the position was recovered with wins in the last six matches, and Norway finished top of Group 3 with eight wins from ten matches. They later went on to finish as runners-up in the finals in Sweden.
Struggle At the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup, Norway was drawn into a group with Germany, Thailand and the Ivory Coast. Norway performed well in the group stage, as the team beat Thailand 4–0 and the Ivory Coast 3–1. They drew 1–1 against former champions Germany. Norway lost 2–1 in the round of sixteen to England, who went on to win the bronze medal.
2016–2018 Martin Sjögren became the new coach of Norway at the end of 2016. He had previous coaching experience in the Damallsvenskan with Linköping and LdB FC Malmö (now known as FC Rosengård).
Norway qualified for Euro 2017 without losing a game. They were drawn into Group A alongside the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark, but lost all three group games without scoring a goal.
In 2017, Norway striker and 2016 UEFA Women's Player of the Year Ada Hegerberg decided to stop representing the national team as a form of protest due to a dispute with the Norwegian Football Federation about how they treat women's football. Hegerberg eventually returned to the national team five years later in March 2022. Her protest led to Norwegian Football Federation in October 2017 to pay Norway's male and female players equally, with the men making a contribution to the women's team. This equalled nearly a fifty percent increase in compensation for the women.
In the 2019 UEFA World Cup Qualifications, Norway defeated the Netherlands with the score of 2–1 in their final group game on 4 September 2018. As a result, Norway won qualifying Group 3 and secured an automatic berth in the 2019 World Cup, while the Netherlands, who won Euro 2017, were forced to go to the play-off.
Euro 2022 In their Euro 2022 group stage match against England, the host country of the competition and eventual champions, on 11 July, Norway lost 8–0. Norway was eliminated after the first round after losing the final Group A match against Austria (0–1), having won only one match, in the opening match against Northern Ireland (4–1).
2023 World Cup In the 2023 World Cup group stage, Norwegian team were defeated by hosts New Zealand (0–1) and reached a draw with Switzerland (0–0). Norway managed to qualify by finishing second in their group thanks to 6–0 victory over the Philippines, who were new to the competition, beating New Zealand on overall goal difference, who also had 4 points. Norway was eliminated in the Round of 16 by Japan (1–3).
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