Ada Hegerberg: Lyon star returns to Norway squad after five-year absence ahead of European Championship

Lyon’s Ada Hegerberg is back in the Norway squad after a five-year absence
Getty Images

Ada Hegerberg, the inaugural winner of the women’s Ballon d’Or, has returned to the Norway squad for the first time in five years.

Hegerberg quit the national team back in 2017, the year before she won the Ballon d’Or, because of a dispute with the Norwegian Football Federation over the treatment of women’s football in the country.

Norway have been trying to get the Lyon forward to return ever since and she has now done so after being named in their latest squad on Thursday.

Hegerberg is due to play in Norway’s World Cup qualifiers against Kosovo and Poland next month, while it is hoped she will also now take part at this summer’s delayed European Championship in England.

“It feels incredibly good to be back,” Hegerberg said in a video message. “I will do my part to help us achieve great things, both on and off the field - for football, for Norway, but not least for the next generation.”

Norway head coach Martin Sjogren described Hegerberg as “one of the best” strikers in the world and said the team would benefit from her return.

“For the most part, we have talked about how we see the future together, and not what has happened in the past,” Sjogren said.

“It was mostly to do with Ada’s role and how we can make the team even better. The conversations have been very good.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in