Claudio Ranieri to become a blessing in disguise for Norwegian football evolution

Claudio Ranieri is doing a grand job at Sampdoria and yesterday Norway played Montenegro in a World Cup qualifier with a certain Morten Thorsby getting a rare chance to shine in the team.

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The 24 year old, is a key man in his club team, but hasn’t yet been seen as that in the national team, strangely and odd, but a change to management could see the Sampdoria midfielder getting more chances after a very impressive game seeing Norway winning 1-0, with RB Leipzig forward Sorloth scoring the one and only goal, assisted by Celtic flank man Moi.

Another young Norwegian talent, Kristoffer Akselsen is also under the wings of Claudio Ranieri as the progression is seen at this traditional football cub, 10th in the table and looks settled and established in the Serie A.

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The next step for Claudio Ranieri is to push this club even further and with Thorsby getting more chances on the international scene, this could be a win, win for both club and country as the former Hereenveen man looked ever so solid in the central midfield position.

Thorsby is a player coming through the ranks at Stabæk, a club in the suburbs of Oslo, that continues to produce exciting young talent, once coached by former Leicester City midfielder Billy McKinlay, today Swede Janne Jonsson is back at the club, who also were in charge when they won the Norwegian league back in 2008, and was as high as 3rd in 2015, then coached by Bob Bradley that had a short spell in charge of Swansea City and was at a time linked with the manager job at Leicester, when vacant as a Championship club.

Akselsen and Thorsby are just two great young prospects to be developed at Stabæk, this season the son of former Nottingham Forest, Blackburn Rovers and Derby County midfielder Lars Bohinen was sold to CSKA Moscow, Emil Bohinen will surely be a player to follow closely going forward.

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Thorsby is currenlty holding Adrien Silva out of the starting line-up at Sampdoria and with Dane Damsgaard and Swede Ekdal also in that midfield area, the aging Silva might have a struggle on his hand as he battles for his minutes on the field after moving from Leicester City last summer.

Interesting to be following Claudio’s progress, the future of Morten Thorsby as he hopefully cement a place in the Norwegian team also after the Montenegro game, he was impressive in his play and looked cool and controlled playing his fifth full international.

Nice to see that previous Leicester City “people” are doing a grand job in getting Norwegian talent to the next level and hopefully the nation again can qualify to a World Cup, hasn’t happened since 1998, with an exciting team coached by Egil “Drillo” Olsen.