Hege Riise is a female footballer from Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

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Club career

Riise started playing football at age 6 and played in a boys' team until age 14.

She won the Norwegian Cup competition with Setskog-Høland in 1992. In late 1995 along with four other Norwegians she joined Nikko Securities Dream Ladies football club in Japan. Nikko won the Japanese league and cup competitions in 1996 and the cup in 1997, after which Riise moved back to Norway to play again with Setskog-Høland.

She joined Asker FK, Oslo, in 2000, and again won the cup competition with Asker the same year.

Drafted by the Carolina Courage

Carolina Courage

Carolina Courage were a professional soccer team that played in the Women's United Soccer Association. The team played at Fetzer Field on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus in 2001, and then at the soccer-specific SAS Stadium in Cary, North Carolina in 2002 and 2003. The team began play in 2001; the...

 in the Women's United Soccer Association

Women's United Soccer Association

The Women's United Soccer Association, often abbreviated to the WUSA, was the world's first women's soccer league in which all the players were paid as professionals. Founded in February 2000, the league began its first season in April 2001 with eight teams in the United States...

 2000 Foreign Draft, Riise was the team's MVP

Most Valuable Player

In sports, a Most Valuable Player award is an honor typically bestowed upon the best performing player or players on a specific team, in an entire league, or for a particular contest or series of contests...

 two times and led the Courage to a WUSA Founders Cup title in 2002. In 2003 the Norwegian Football Association

Football Association of Norway

The Football Association of Norway is the governing body of football in Norway. Current FIFA World Champions It was formed in 1902 and organises the men's and women's national teams, as well as the Norwegian Premier League.The team are enjoying their best ever spell thanks to World Player of the...

 named Riise the best female Norwegian footballer ever.

Returning to Norway in 2005 Hege Riise joined Team Strømmen of Oslo and became the club's playing assistant trainer in 2006. She played her last top-level match with Team Strømmen on October 28, 2006 aged 37 and retired from football as a player.

International career

Riise made her international debut with the Norwegian national team

Norway women's national football team

The Norway women's national football team represents Norway in international women's football. The team, controlled by the Football Association of Norway, are former European, World and Olympic champions and thus one of the most successful national teams...

 in 1990. Norway won the UEFA Women's Championship

UEFA Women's Championship

The UEFA European Women's Championship, also called the UEFA Women's Euro and unofficially the "European Cup", held every fourth year, is the main competition in women's association football between national teams of the UEFA Confederation...

 in 1993. Two years later with Norway she won the 1995 FIFA Women's World Cup and was awarded the Golden Ball and Golden Shoe after the competition.

Riise's biggest achievement with Norway was winning the gold medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics

2000 Summer Olympics

The Sydney 2000 Summer Olympic Games or the Millennium Games/Games of the New Millennium, officially known as the Games of the XXVII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was celebrated between 15 September and 1 October 2000 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...

 in Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

, to become one of only three women in the world to win the Olympics, the World Cup and the European Championship (with Gro Espeseth

Gro Espeseth

Gro Espeseth is a former Norwegian footballer, world champion and olympic champion.She played for the clubs Sandviken and Trondheims-Ørn, debuted for the Norwegian national team in 1991, and played 105 matches for the national team.She received a bronze medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics in...

 and Bente Nordby

Bente Nordby

Bente Nordby is a former Norwegian football goalkeeper, who last played for Olympique Lyonnais in Lyon, France. She played with the Norwegian Women's National Football Team from 1991 to 2007.- Career :...

).

She retired from international football in September 2004 with 188 caps and 58 goals.

Training career

Riise retired as a player at the end of the 2006 season with 188 international caps to her credit, the record for all Norwegian footballers. In 2007 she became the chief trainer at Team Strømmen, in the Norwegian women's premier league, the Toppserien. In the 2008 season, Team Strømmen were runners-up in both the league and the Cup competitions.

On January 28, 2009, Riise was appointed Assistant Trainer to the USA women's national team

United States women's national soccer team

The United States women's national soccer team represents the United States in international soccer competition and is controlled by U.S. Soccer. The U.S. team won the first ever Women's World Cup in 1991, and has since been a superpower in women's soccer. It is currently ranked first in the world...

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Hege Riise has announced her wish to become the chief trainer of the Norwegian women's team at some future unspecified date.