Football

Italy challenges Norway: how a small nation became a global sports powerhouse

Tonight at the San Siro at 20.45 the decisive challenge against the Scandinavian national team, symbol of a country's sporting excellence

by Andrea Goldstein

16 November 2025

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Il norvegese Alexander Soerloth (3-R) festeggia con i compagni di squadra dopo aver segnato il gol dell'1-0 durante la partita di qualificazione alla Coppa del Mondo FIFA 2026 tra Norvegia e Italia allo stadio Ullevaal di Oslo, Norvegia, il 6 giugno 2025.( EPA/Cornelius Poppe)

4' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

4' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

After Bodø Glimt, who in April had eliminated Lazio from the Europa League in the quarter-finals by fielding almost all native players, Valerenga Oslo's all-Scandinavian players also took to the field on Tuesday, defeating Roma in an away match on the third day of the Champions' League. On Sunday at the San Siro it is the turn of Rino Gattuso's Azzurri: heavily defeated in June, they are called upon to regain at least their sporting dignity, waiting for the play-offs to win the coveted qualification for the 2026 North American World Cup. Nor is football the most popular sport in Norway.

Population of legendary athletes

Mind you, it is hard to speak of surprise when it comes to the nation that with less than 6 million inhabitants - a tenth of Italy - has won 405 medals, 148 of them gold, in 24 editions of the Winter Olympics. Numbers that earned Norway first place in the all-time medals table, ahead of the USA (330), and that correspond to the exploits of legendary athletes such as three-time figure skating champion Sonja Henie, cross-country skiers Marit Bjørgen (15 medals, including eight gold, from 2002-18) and Bjørn Dæhlie (12 and 8 in 1992-98), or biathletes Ole Einar Bjørndalen (13 and 8 in 1994-2014) and Johannes Thingnes Bø. And it is easy to predict an excellent performance at Milan Cortina 2026 - after all, at the last Olympic event in 2022 Norway set a new all-time record for golds in one edition (16), accompanying that of the overall number of podiums (39 in 2018).

Not only winter sports

What is recent and unexpected is seeing so many Norwegian athletes excel in summer disciplines. They range from Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Karsten Warholm in athletics (winners in the 1.500 and men's 400 metres hurdles in Paris 2024) to Premier League stars Erling Haaland (twice top scorer) and Martin Odegaard, from footballers Ada Hegerberg (six Champions League titles to her credit with the French OL) and Caroline Graham Hansen to tennis player Casper Ruud (second in the world in September 2022) and golfer Viktor Hovland (member of the European team that won the Ryder Cup 2025). Not forgetting the Håndballjentene, the reigning Olympic and European champion women's handball team, or, in a non-Olympic discipline, chess player Magnus Carlsen, the best of all time according to the Fédération internationale des échecs.

What explains this almost irresistible rise, beyond the possible randomness of the simultaneous appearance of so many natural talents?

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Friluftsliv and money

There is a cultural element, symbolised by the Ibsenian concept of the friluftsliv, the life in the open air, that has progressively overcome the purely individualistic dimension to acquire a collective one, of sharing experiences and best practices. This kind of mutual growth began in the 1980s, when Norway was in a sporting crisis, and coincided with the preparation for the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Games.

Operating under the motto 'collaborate when possible, compete when necessary' is clearly easier in slogans than in practice, but it seems to work. But the real accelerator was money. Around the same time, Norway was enjoying an oil boom that would make it one of the richest countries in the world. Thanks to this boon, the state, businesses and local communities were able to invest in training, facilities and support equipment for athletes. The Norwegian School of Sports Sciences plays a key role, ranging from topics such as talent development in elite sport to how to retain Gen Z athletes.

More than anything else, however, it is the very high social legitimacy of the practice of sport that has allowed Norway to realise its full potential. By the age of 25, 93 per cent of Norwegians have played a sport, but without the pressure to score all the time. On the contrary, keeping score is discouraged for participants up to the age of 13. Children are encouraged to continue playing sports regardless of ability, competitive or economic.

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Winning combination effect

The combined effect is that, despite a relatively small population, Norway can fish in a huge talent pool. An ecosystem in which everyone has distinct characteristics. Warholm, a three-time world champion, seems to have been born to compete in the spotlight of the most celebrated stadiums of global athleticism, despite having grown up in Ulsteinvik, a small village on the island of Hareidlandet, in the far west of the country. Instead, Ingebrigtsen comes from a family of runners, famous thanks to a documentary series detailing the attempts of his father, Gjert, to coach him and his older brothers. Team Ingebrigtsen was successful in Norway, before the family splintered following complaints from Jakob and his brothers, who accused Gjert of using physical violence and threats. Then there are Haaland and Ruud, both sons of top sportsmen.

I mean, it will be tough ... but in sport, even more than in life, sometimes David gets the better of Goliath - and right now, on the football pitch, the son of Jesse is us!