Football: Norway join new world order: Jasper Rees on the rising footballing nation whom England meet this week

LAST Sunday, Greece became the first European country to qualify for next year's World Cup finals. Not France; not Italy; not Belgium; certainly not England or the Netherlands: Greece.

Switzerland are sure to follow them, and by Wednesday week, when they will have played England at home and the Dutch away, we ought to know whether Norway are also going to America.

The elevation of Denmark as the champions of Europe is just the tip of the iceberg: the centres of power in European football are shifting inexorably. The decline of sport in Eastern Europe, where there are other things to think about, means that Bulgaria and Hungary are more of a pushover than ever before, while Yugoslavia are out of the picture altogether. Their places were there for the taking.

Norway are following the European champions' path so surefootedly that it is almost as if they are working to a formula. Like Denmark, like the Republic of Ireland and other nations without a large pool to pick from, they play a game based on power, running, breaking at speed, spoiling, strength of numbers in midfield and meticulous organisation.

And, like Denmark who beat Germany in the European Championship final last summer, their squad is composed of one German-based star, a sound English-based goalkeeper, several domestic worthies and a bunch of players on the fringes of middling-to-good clubs dotted around Europe, but mostly English ones.

England is now deeply implicated in the fate of Norwegian football, and not just because we will be slugging it out with them on Wednesday. The inflation in the price of footballers has turned Europe's Nordic fringe into a bargain basement, and no one shops for cut-price goods more assiduously than the ambitious but impecunious members of the Premier League. No sooner had Denmark won in Sweden and Norway eked out a lucky draw at Wembley last October than our top clubs were snapping up, for much less than a million, anyone with Viking blood and a cap or two.

Never mind whether this is good for English football, opinion varies about whether it is good for Norway. 'There's a short season here,' Erik Thorstvedt, of Tottenham, said. 'Only five or six months and the standard is not as high, so it's important to get more players abroad. When we get good results more people come and watch us and take interest.'

Norway's manager, Egil Olsen, is not so sure of the benefits. 'In England they are all sitting on the bench,' he said, 'and the football in Norway is also so good that it doesn't mean all players abroad are good enough for the national team.' And far from becoming better players, the failure of Frank Strandli, Kare Ingebrigtsen, Henning Berg and Stig Inge Bjornebye to take the Premier League by storm can be good only for their bank balances.

Fielding a team of exiles did not stop Argentina from reaching the World Cup final in 1990, but Norway are not yet that far down the road. The sea change came with the appointment of Olsen, who has been in the job as long as Graham Taylor. 'We've always been pretty well organised and hard to break down,' Thorstvedt said, 'but he's been able to make us go out and dictate games. We've always let in quite a few but we score twice as many under him as under any of his predecessors.'

In 1991, Olsen's charges took three points off Italy 'and after that confidence has been very high,' said the manager, whose previous job was with the under-21 team. There lies another reason for success. In a very young squad, only Thorstvedt and the captain, Rune Bratseth, are over 30.

'Norway always had a lot of talent up to the age of 17 or 18,' said Kjetil Rekdal, who plays in Belgium and whose spectacular goal secured the draw at Wembley, 'but now the step from junior to senior football is going better than ever. A lot of hard work has been done by the Norwegian FA over many years and now you see the result.'

With their domestic league slowly strengthening and attendances rising, success might even trickle down to Norway's clubs in Europe. 'They can't do any worse, because it's a first-round exit every year,' Thorstvedt said. According to Rekdal: 'Norwegian teams have done very well at home but not very well away. In Norwegian competitions when you play an away game you are not under pressure, so there's a big difference from playing an away game in a European cup. But it's changing.' Olsen, meanwhile, reckons that Rosenborg Trondheim 'may succeed very soon in the European Cup'.

Spectator interest has never been so intense as for the visit of England, still fondly regarded as the Mecca of football. When an advertisement told people to ring a number at a certain time to book one of the 390 tickets returned by the English FA the city's telephone system collapsed under the weight of 100,000 calls.

'For the moment you can't go outside,' Rekdal said. 'There are always people stopping you, asking questions. But it can all change in a week of course.'