Summary · Question 1 of 14

Five pathway measures: Norway, Denmark and Czechia, 2025/26

Five measures, from youth minutes at home to players in Europe’s top-ranked leagues, for Norwegian football and the two comparison countries used throughout the atlas. Each links to the page with the full evidence. The order follows a player’s path; it is not a causal chain.

Five-stage funnel: Norwegian football next to Denmark and Czechia on the share of playing time young players get at home, the league's average age, the age of the first move abroad, the share of sideways moves, and players per million people in Europe's strongest leagues.
How to read it: one rung per stage of the argument, each on its own scale, so the dots show the distance between countries, not the size of the number. The filled green dot is Norway; the open dots are the two comparison countries. Under each rung is which direction means a more open pathway. Hover a dot for the exact value.

  1. Playing time for under-21 nationals in the country’s own top league.

    Share of league minutes that went to players aged 21 or under

    NOR 11.5 % DEN 15.3 % CZE 6.4 %

    Clubs that gave those young players more than a tenth of their own playing time

    NOR 12 of 16 clubs DEN 11 of 12 clubs CZE 9 of 16 clubs

    Under-21 nationals who were regular starters, per club in the league

    NOR 1.56 per club (25 players) DEN 2.50 per club (30 players) CZE 1.06 per club (17 players)

    The regular-starter line is drawn at ten starts; at five it is 2.4 per club, at fifteen 0.9 (ten: 1.6).

    11.2 % of the league’s starts went to them against 11.5 % of its minutes, so they start about as often as they play at all; in a start they played a median 75 minutes against the league’s 80.

  2. The age profile of the home league.

    Average age of a minute played in the league

    NOR 25.6 DEN 25.4 CZE 26.0

    Share of league minutes that went to players aged 30 or over

    NOR 15.9 % DEN 19.5 % CZE 21.1 %

  3. Age at the first season with real playing time in a foreign league.

    Median age at the first season with real playing time in a foreign league, over the players abroad today

    NOR 22.5 years (60 players) DEN 23 years (112 players) CZE 24 years (32 players)

  4. Moves abroad to a league no stronger than the home league.

    Share of players abroad in a league no stronger than their own (UEFA-coefficient multiplier)

    NOR 22 % DEN 10 % CZE —

  5. Players in Europe’s top-ranked leagues per million people.

    Players in Europe's top-ranked leagues, for every million people

    NOR 9.37 DEN 12.58 CZE 2.39

    The change-point model’s most probable season for a fall in the count of Norwegian players in the Big-5 is 2004/05 (posterior 26 %), a level change of ×0.67 (90 % HDI 0.27–1.39). The 90 % interval for the fall includes ×1.00, so the fall is not distinguishable from no change at that level. Break & forecast.

In the gap decomposition (descriptive, see its page), the channel with the largest contribution for both Denmark and Czechia is how strong the domestic league is. It describes associations across 8 countries and does not say what would change the gap.

What this means

The five measures are associations, measured the same way for Norway, Denmark and Czechia and placed in the order of a player’s path. The order is not a causal chain: the page shows where Norway differs from the two comparison countries, and it does not show which measure, if changed, would change the per-head count. Samples differ by measure and are given with each number.

What this does not show

  • Money: transfer fees, wages and academy budgets play no part in any number above.
  • How the academy and coaching set-up actually work day to day, which no public data source used here can see.
  • Agents, and how a move abroad actually gets arranged, which happens off any table this pipeline can read.
  • The direction of the arrow: a low share of playing time for young players at home could help cause a thin generation, or just as easily be a symptom of one — the five numbers above are associations measured the same way for every country.

Data snapshot: FBref tables fetched 14 September 2026, snapshot commit ef7dbd4 · code: src/pipeline_facts.py, src/pathways.py · status: exploratory, not pre-registered · all limitations

Explore the data

Five pathway measures

Five pathway measures

Four exhibits comparing Norway with 8 peer countries: youth exposure at home, export route, how exports fare, and who made it.

Exhibit A — youth exposure at home

Share of a domestic league's total minutes played by its own nationals aged 21 or under, 2025/26.

* Σ minutes of players with the league country's nationality and age ≤ 21 at the season's start ÷ Σ minutes of all players in the league, 2025/26. Under-23 shares: DEN 21.2 %, HUN 22.6 %, CRO 22.7 %, NOR 19.8 %, AUT 16.5 %, POL 14.4 %, SUI 16.6 %, CZE 13.5 %. A league without a bar is not covered by FBref.

Exhibit B — export route

For every peer-country player on a 2026/27 top-9 roster: the age at the first top-9 season (full roster, and recent entrants only) and, for recent entrants, the league of the season before it. Norwegian exports: 37 players, median export age 21 (recent entrants 17, median 22), 53 % of the recent ones straight from the Eliteserien*.

CountrynRecent Age at first top-9 season (all)Age at first top-9 season (recent) DomesticStepping stoneOther top-9Not covered Censored
NOR Norway 37 17 21 22 53 % 0 % 0 % 47 % 19 %
DEN Denmark 65 25 22 22 60 % 0 % 0 % 40 % 14 %
SUI Switzerland 42 13 23 21 85 % 0 % 0 % 15 % 33 %
AUT Austria 37 13 23 22 54 % 8 % 0 % 38 % 35 %
CZE Czechia 15 7 23 22 0 % 0 % 0 % 100 % 20 %
CRO Croatia 39 10 23 24.5 60 % 10 % 0 % 30 % 31 %
POL Poland 30 13 23 24 38 % 23 % 0 % 38 % 20 %
HUN Hungary 18 11 22 22 91 % 0 % 0 % 9 % 11 %
SVK Slovakia 11 4 24 23 0 % 0 % 0 % 100 % 27 %

* Export age = age at the first season in any headline league, history back to 2020/21; a first appearance already in 2020/21 is censored. Recent entrants: first top-9 season 2025/26 or 2026/27, the only ones whose previous season lies inside the fetched window (2024/25 onwards for peer domestic leagues). Stepping-stone league: GER-2. Bundesliga, the one covered league below the top nine that is no peer’s home league. Not covered: no earlier row in the data.

Exhibit C — how the exports fare

Peer-country players at a top-9 club in 2025/26: median share of the club's minutes, and the club's strength within its league.

Median share of the club’s minutes

SVK Slovakia n = 17
76 %
HUN Hungary n = 15
57 %
CZE Czechia n = 26
50 %
SUI Switzerland n = 54
48 %
CRO Croatia n = 47
46 %
DEN Denmark n = 75
46 %
AUT Austria n = 44
43 %
POL Poland n = 45
41 %
NOR Norway n = 52
37 %

Median club goals-scored percentile within its league (club-strength proxy)

HUN Hungary n = 15
72 %
CZE Czechia n = 26
67 %
SVK Slovakia n = 17
60 %
AUT Austria n = 44
59 %
NOR Norway n = 52
56 %
DEN Denmark n = 75
56 %
CRO Croatia n = 47
55 %
POL Poland n = 45
55 %
SUI Switzerland n = 54
50 %

* Minutes share = player minutes ÷ (club matches × 90), 2025/26, one row per player-season. Club strength proxy: goals-scored percentile within league — clubs ranked by the goals their own roster scored that season (ClubElo was unreachable at run time). Both are medians over the country's exports; n per country in the bars.

Exhibit D — profile of those who made it

Goals + assists per 90, league-adjusted, in 2025/26 by the tier of the player's own league: domestic, stepping stone, top-9, or another covered league. Norwegian count and median against the median of the peer countries' values.

Profile table by tier and position group
TierGroupNOR nNOR medianPeer median nPeer median
domestic league FW 31 0.18 16.5 0.12
domestic league MF 72 0.10 57 0.06
domestic league DF 76 0.04 42.5 0.02
stepping-stone league FW 0 — 2 0.28
stepping-stone league MF 2 0.07 2 0.09
stepping-stone league DF 1 0.01 2 0.05
top-9 league FW 6 0.29 5 0.28
top-9 league MF 23 0.13 16 0.14
top-9 league DF 11 0.06 8 0.04
other covered league FW 7 0.16 6 0.13
other covered league MF 9 0.08 6.5 0.08
other covered league DF 3 0.02 10.5 0.02

* Tier = the league of the player's own 2025/26 season. Peer median n and peer median are medians across the peer countries present in that tier and group; a tier a country has no player in is absent, not zero.

Exhibit E — where Norwegian exports go

Of the 236 mapped Norwegian players, 59 play outside the Eliteserien.

  • top-9 Sondre Ørjasæter · Tobias Lauritsen · Erling Haaland
  • peer country league Fredrik Ulvestad · Kristian Arnstad · Robin Dahl Østrøm
  • stepping stone Jonas Therkelsen · Jesper Daland
  • other Sivert Mannsverk

* Buckets by the league of the player's own 2025/26 season; a player is counted once per position group, like everywhere else on the page, so one with rows in two groups counts in each; the number in front of each bar is the player count, the median multiplier is the bucket's median league multiplier. Sideways: destination league multiplier <= the domestic league's multiplier.

F · The 2026 FIFA World Cup squad by league tier

Where the 26 players named to the 2026 FIFA World Cup squad played in 2025/26, next to Switzerland, Austria, Czechia. Tier = the league of the player's most-minutes 2025/26 row.

Minutes, multipliers and age cohorts by country
Country Median minutesMedian multiplier U2223–25 26–2930+
NOR Norway 2164.5 0.832 2 6 14 4
SUI Switzerland 2132 0.788 1 5 10 10
AUT Austria 1711.5 0.788 1 6 10 9
CZE Czechia 1826.5 0.434 1 6 10 9

* 6 of the 104 squad players across the 4 countries have no 2025/26 row in the fetched leagues and are counted as unmatched (NOR 4, SUI 0, AUT 2, CZE 0).