Norway’s Grainger facing Gaupset selection dilemma ahead of Italy tie
- Last updated: July 16, 2025 | 10:04
Norway forward Signe Gaupset’s two goals and two assists in their final group game against Iceland have given coach Gemma Grainger a lot to ponder ahead of their quarter-final clash with Italy at the Women’s Euros in Geneva on Wednesday.
With the group already won, the 20-year-old replaced Guro Reiten on the left side of the attack and seized the opportunity, scoring twice and teeing up Frida Maanum for two more goals leading to calls from fans for Gaupset to start.
“With Signe, the Iceland performance, that wasn’t so much of a surprise to any of us. We see Signe training every day and that’s how she is,” Grainger told reporters, remaining tight-lipped about her plans.
“With the rest of the team, the competitiveness has been really high and for me as a manager that’s exactly the position that I want to be in, and it’s a position that I want the team to be in also.”
The Norwegians have appeared to be in high spirits at their training base on the shore of Lake Neuchatel, with the players laughing and joking and signing autographs for fans.
However, captain Ada Hegerberg, who recently spoke to Reuters about her will to inspire at the tournament, said that the chance of a spot in the last four is a huge opportunity for her side.
“It’s an incredibly big moment for us. We have had a very good energy, the whole team.
Everyone has contributed,” Hegerberg, who played in Norway’s 2013 final defeat by Germany, told reporters.
“We want to have a good match tomorrow, we want to grab the opportunity to be in the top four in Europe, that would be incredible,” she added.
Meanwhile, the women’s game has come a long way since the last time Norway played a knockout game at the Euros, agonisingly losing the 2013 final 1-0 to Germany with a callow, 18-year-old Ada Hegerberg, now team captain, starting up front.
At that tournament in Sweden, a combined total of 28,814 spectators saw Norway’s group games, a number dwarfed by the 34,063 who saw their 2025 opener, a 2-1 win over hosts Switzerland in which Hegerberg equalised with a bullet header, and the 30-year-old has played a greater role than most in the growth of the game.
“You’ve got to take care of the next generation as well. We’re here to inspire, we’re here to be open, and that’s what we want to do,” Hegerberg told Reuters at a training session open to fans near the team’s base in Neuchatel where locals had come in their droves to watch.
Together with vice-captain Caroline Graham Hansen and former captain Maren Mjelde, Hegerberg came so close to winning in 2013, but German keeper Nadine Angerer saved two penalties to thwart the young stars.
“Me and Caro (Graham Hansen), we haven’t talked a lot about that game when we were younger, because I don’t think we realised then what an opportunity that was. But we talk about it today and we’re like, damn it, we were one goal away from winning a Euros,” Hegerberg explained.
“And I think people tend to forget that, but you know it was an incredible experience. Things have changed a lot since, football has changed a lot, but, yeah, it’s starting to become a long, long time ago, and we’ve experienced a whole deal after that.” To say that Hegerberg has experienced a lot since then is something of an understatement; she has won 10 French league titles and six Champions League titles with Olympique Lyonnais and a slew of individual awards including the first women’s Ballon d’Or in 2018.
She has also spent almost five years in self-imposed exile from the national team in protest at how the Norwegian Football Federation treated women’s football. She returned in 2022 and has since taken over the captain’s armband from Mjelde, ushering in a new era.
“It’s a huge responsibility, something that I take very seriously, very inspired to take on that role as well. And you know, Caro is my vice captain, and we’ve been in the game for a long while,” she said.
“It’s all about transmitting experience calmness when that’s needed, power when that’s needed, you know, I learn an awful lot, being in that role... I’m myself with them and authenticity is the only way.”
Agencies