Norway boss Stale Solbakken will be looking to cause an upset against England on Saturday night when the two sides meet in Miami for their World Cup quarter-final showdown.
Solbakken, aided by some world class talent including the likes of Erling Haaland and Martin Odegaard, has transformed the team’s fortunes since taking the job back in 2020.
This summer’s World Cup is the first major tournament the Norwegians have competed in for 26 years, while their current world ranking of 19th is one of the highest in the country’s history.
But life could have turned out very differently for Solbakken, had the events of a fateful day in March 2001 taken a turn for the worse.
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Solbakken, who was 33 at the time and had recently featured for Norway at the 1998 World Cup and Euro 2000, was just six months into his stint at Danish giants Copenhagen when he suffered a heart attack during a training session.
Club doctor, Frank Odgaard, rushed to the midfielder’s side and administered a cardiac massage, in front of the shell-shocked Copenhagen squad, until an ambulance got to the training ground.
Upon the ambulance’s arrival, Solbakken was pronounced clinically dead after his heart stopped for seven minutes.
Incredibly, Solbakken was revived in the ambulance and was placed on a life-support machine for 26 hours in hospital, before gradually regaining consciousness. It would later transpire that he had been born with a heart defect.
Solbakken was fitted with a pacemaker, which he still wears to this day, before unsurprisingly announcing his retirement from football.
‘It was a dramatic experience but it was really worse for my family than for me because I didn’t feel anything,’ he said.
Solbakken remembers nothing about the events of March 13, insisting ‘it was simply as if the lights went out.’
He added: ‘For those who saw all this, what they went through must have been a trauma. My wife still cannot talk about it, even though so many years have passed.
‘At that moment she was left alone with two children — four and one years old. Anniken was only 23–24, and I was amazed at how she managed to cope with this difficult situation at such a young age.
‘My parents flew to Denmark straight away. I was told that on the plane my mum started planning my funeral.
‘At first they worried whether I would survive. Then — whether my brain would be damaged.
‘Those were the thoughts that tormented my family and team‑mates, who witnessed me collapsing, dying and being brought back to life.
Solbakken turned to coaching after retiring from the game, although the move into the dugout was not the end of his health problems.
During his first spell as Copenhagen manager in 2009, Solbakken’s heart stopped again and his life was only saved by the pacemaker which had been fitted eight years previous.
‘I was running across the pitch and suddenly felt my body go weak. ‘What the hell is going on?’ I thought. And then I was simply knocked to the ground. It was like a real kick up the backside. But after that I was fine.’
There was even more concern on the eve of the 2026 World Cup when, during an interview, Solbakken felt something in his chest.
‘My pacemaker suddenly started vibrating. That had not happened since 2009. I had everything checked, now everything is fine and I am calm.’ It turned out one of the journalists’ microphones had inadvertently interfered with his pacemaker.
Despite the recent scare, Solbakken no longer regards his defected heart to be an issue in his life and has forged a successful career as a coach – a brief spell at Wolves in 2012 aside.
‘I live perfectly well with the pacemaker, which kicks in as soon as the heart starts beating incorrectly. I do not feel any pain, I have no consequences except for the scar on my chest where the device is placed.
‘I consider myself to have got off very lightly.’