Having little culture for official clubs and a series system, Norway had a lot to do to catch up with neighboring Sweden and Denmark.

Eventually, Norway's Women's National Football Team rose in success through Europe, albeit not besting their Nordic neighbors.

A surprising home draw against Iceland mattered little, Norway took the second spot in a qualification where only the best teams qualified.

Norway continued to win the next year as they beat Sweden again in a final in 1988 FIFA Women's Invitation Tournament, in China.

Having lost two Euro finals, Norway were not among the favourites, but they defeated Germany by two goals scored within the space of four minutes, becoming world champions.

The 1997 Euros turned out to be a big disappointment for the ruling world champions at home, and Norway only made it to the semi-finals.

Tiffeny Milbrett took the lead for the US, but Norway equaled the score by Gro Espeseth and stayed in the game with a good keeper in Bente Nordby.

In the 2003 World Cup, Norway disappointed with a fumbling 1–4 to Brazil in the group stage before losing to USA in the quarter-finals.

As Greece was arranging the 2004 Summer Olympics, there were only two additional spots for European teams, and Sweden and Germany, who had both proceeded to the finals, took them.

Under the new coach, Bjarne Berntsen, Norway took things up a notch by reaching the final of the 2005 Euros with a classic 3–2 win over Sweden in extra time in the semifinal.

In the bronze final Norway lost 1–4 to the US to finish in fourth place in the World Cup, which qualified them to enter the Beijing Olympics.

Norway's top scorer Ragnhild Gulbrandsen was awarded the Bronze Boot behind Marta of Brazil and Abby Wambach of the United States.

First he was criticized for telling Lise Klaveness she had no future in the national team under him, at 1 a.m. at Oslo airport as they were arriving back from China, a gross error that he later admitted.

With a reduced team, and also after some less controversial resignations, Norway produced a relatively good result at the 2009 UEFA Women's Championship by beating Sweden 3–1 in the quarter-finals, even with an embarrassing 0–4 against Germany and a modest 1–0 against Iceland and 1–1 against France.

Landsem produced acceptable results and the team qualified to play in the 2011 FIFA World Cup after winning all but one of the matches in their qualification group.

The next task was qualification to the 2013 European Cup competition, with Norway in Group 3 with Iceland, Northern Ireland, Belgium, Hungary and Bulgaria.

[9] On 9 September 2017 Norway striker and 2016 UEFA Women's Player of the Year Ada Hegerberg announced she was taking a break from international duty, and was unsure when or if she would return.

[11] On 4 September 2018 Norway defeated the Netherlands 2–1 in their final group game of UEFA World Cup Qualifying.

[12] In their Euro 2022 group stage match against England, the host country of the competition and eventual champions, on 11 July 2022, the team suffered their biggest defeat, losing 8–0.

Win Draw Lose Void or Postponed Fixture The following 23 players were called up for the 2025 UEFA Women's Nations League matches against France and Switzerland on 21 and 25 February 2025 respectively.

The Algarve Cup is a global invitational tournament for national teams in women's soccer hosted by the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF).