The Norwegian women’s national football team was met with flag-waving fans at Oslo’s main airport at Gardermoen when players returned with silver medals from the European championships in Sweden. Some, though, face an abrupt transition back to reality.
After playing before more than 41,000 cheering spectators, top players like Trine Rønning will need to get used to nearly empty bleachers at the matches of their local clubs, and they’ll suddenly be playing against each other instead of on the same team.
“I think everyday life will hit all of us,” Rønning told newspaper Dagsavisen on Monday. “It will be an anticlimax to play league matches after this, but it will be good to come back to Stabæk (her professional club). I’ve missed everyone there.”
Stabæk, which had eight players on the national squad at Euro 2013, will be playing Sandviken, which had one, on Sunday. It will be a match on a much smaller scale than the Euro 2013 veterans had a taste of in Sweden.
Many of the players headed almost immediately to Ekeberg in Oslo on Monday, to make an appearance at Norway Cup, the world’s largest youth football tournament that got underway over the weekend. There they were also welcomed as heroines and played with some of the youngsters, until taking off for short break before league matches pick up again this weekend.
newsinenglish.no staff
