Norwegian star Linda Medalen’s outspokenness sometimes rankles opponents, but she’s a legend back home after leading Norway to one world championship and two European titles.


If Linda Medalen had been cut out to be a soldier, Norway might never have won a world championship.

Instead of serving her country in the military, she has brought it glory on the soccer field. Rather than be promoted and decorated, she chose to be capped.

In more than a decade of international play, she’s played for her country more than 140 times and won a Women’s World Cup and two European Championships as well as a bronze medal at the 1996 Olympics.

As her name suggests, she can medal.

“She is very famous,” Norway coach Per-Mathias Hogmo said. “Of course, some of the [Norway] men are more famous, but all the people in Norway know who Linda Medalen is. She has a great name.”

Her strong personality, work ethic and length of service has made her a natural leader for Norway’s young USA ’99 squad. Medalen is the sixth-most capped player in the world and will turn 34 three days before Norway opens its World Cup defense in Boston against Russia June 20.

She is certainly familiar to the U.S. national team. Medalen has helped Norway compile the only winning record against the U.S. (11-10-1) by an international opponent.

In the big games, and against the U.S., Medalen usually comes through.

She hit the game-winning goal against Sweden in the final of an unofficial women’s world championship in 1988. She scored six goals in 1991 as Norway finished second to the U.S. in the inaugural Women’s World Cup, and tallied four more at the 1996 Olympics.

Medalen was there when Norway came to the U.S. in 1991 prior to the World Cup and beat the Americans twice. She was on the field when Norway knocked off the U.S. in the Sweden ’95 semifinals as the Norwegians rolled to the world championship, and she anchored the back line in her new role when Norway handed the U.S. its worst loss ever, a 4-1 pasting in the 1998 Algarve Cup.

None of it might have happened, though, had her outlook on life not changed in her early 20s.

Major Medalen?


Back in the late 1980s she was still deciding what career path to follow. A good athlete as a youth, she excelled at downhill skiing and handball. But she showed the most promise in soccer, which she began playing at age 7 because her older brother John played.

She also had aspirations away from sports. Medalen had dreamed of military life ever since she grew up just outside an army base and watched soldiers training and marching.

Medalen spent a couple of years in military school in her early 20s. She was on course to become an officer when she decided the army wasn’t for her.

“The military is almost like prison, being inside there all the time,” she said. “You don’t meet anyone else but young boys. You have to train all the time. That’s why I decided early I didn’t want to go into higher military education, but I wanted to go work with people.”

This was about the same time she broke into the national team. She made her debut, in 1987 at the age of 22.

So she went to the Oslo Police Academy instead. She was occasionally recognized as a soccer player during her four years as a constable. Medalen was never in a truly dangerous situation, “but someone tried to pull the hair out of my head once,” she said. “I lost a lot of hair.”

Sandwiched around her police job, Medalen starred for Norwegian club Asker and Japanese L-League club Nikko. In several years, she split time between the teams, in addition to traveling for national team assignments.

Early in her career, Medalen was a hard-working right back who impressed coaches enough with her speed and ability to get moved to the frontline. Medalen spent most of her international career as a forward and has scored over 60 goals.

But she became a defender again last year when Hogmo wanted to inject some speed into the backline. She feels it revived her, physically and psychologically.

“The Norwegian style is very tiring,” she said. “There’s a lot of running up there, and I didn’t find my inspiration anymore. I was wondering if I was going to quit, what was I going to do. I had a possibility of playing defender, and it was like a whole new world for me. I got new inspiration.”

She may have lost a step, but she’s almost as good a defender as she was a forward. Medalen capably marshaled the defense for the FIFA World Stars, which had been thrown together a couple of days before, and had them playing like a cohesive unit.

“She wants to be a better player,” Hogmo said. “She always looks to develop her skills. Linda is a player who loves to play football.”

Blunt after ’95 victory


She also loves to stir things up, and in her brash, cocksure statements Medalen personifies the confident persona of this Norwegian team.

After beating the U.S. in ’95, Medalen was characteristically blunt in assessing U.S. shortcomings.

“[Michelle] Akers, Mia Hamm and [Carin] Jennings [Gabarra], they’re not the best players anymore,” Medalen said. “In China they were the best players.”

Medalen’s outspokenness sometimes rankles opponents, and she fired off a few well-aimed barbs during Women’s World Cup festivities last February. After a series of jokes, Medalen drew nervous laughter when she said she hoped Norway played the U.S. in this summer’s final.

“That’s Linda,” said U.S. defender Brandi Chastain, who wondered aloud what the Chinese, Germans and Brazilians thought of Medalen’s quote. “That doesn’t surprise me.”

“Sometimes she speaks a little bit too much, some think, herself included,” Norway coach Per-Mathias Hogmo said.

“I don’t like to say things if I don’t really mean it,” Medalen countered. “I’m a very honest person and I don’t like to keep things to myself if it doesn’t feel right. But I don’t want to say things just to say them. I don’t like to be arrogant.”

She doesn’t shy away from the spotlight. Two years ago, she posed nude on the cover of a Norwegian tabloid with only a soccer ball to hide behind. Nothing was exposed, but she took some ribbing from her various teammates.

“That’s why I had to get paid for the photo,” Medalen laughed. “It was all the talk afterwards.”

She returned to Norway when the L-League closed itself to foreigners last year and now plays solely for Asker. Medalen also left her time-consuming job on the police force to take a part-time job as a private investigator. This allows her to train and play for the national team.

“I can’t work full time in Norway if I want to become a better player and have time to rest,” she said. “You can’t work part-time as a police officer. That’s why I wanted to do something similar.”

If Norway reaches the World Cup quarterfinals and qualifies as expected for the 2000 Olympics, Medalen will play another year. If not, “I have no plans, but probably I’ll retire. I don’t want to decide yet.

“I’ll probably go back to the police force and probably go snowboarding as much as I can. I want to go to the mountains and do lots of things.”

>by Soccer America Associate Editor Dean Caparaz