Roar Strand (born 2 February 1970) is a Norwegian former professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who played as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

, mostly for Rosenborg. Strand was capped 42 times for the Norway national team. He is the player with the fourth-highest number of appearances in the Norwegian top division. He has won 16 league titles, more than any other player in

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

and the Norwegian Football Cup five times, and he has scored goals in 21 consecutive top flight seasons.

Club career

Strand was born in

Trondheim Trondheim ( , , ; sma, Tråante), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2020, it had a population of 205,332, was the third most populous municipality in Norway, an ...

and played for Rosenborg his whole career, except for the 1993 season when he was loaned out to

Molde FK Molde Fotballklubb () is a professional football club based in Molde, Norway, that competes in Eliteserien, the top flight of Norwegian football. Founded on 19 June 1911, the club was originally known as International and changed its name to ...

, from he made his debut in 1989 till he retired in 2010. He mostly played as

but as an allrounder he also played as winger and wingback. Strand won the

Norwegian top division Eliteserien () is a Norwegian professional league for association football clubs. At the top of the Norwegian football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. Contested by 16 clubs, it operates on a system of promoti ...

16 times (11 consecutive) as well as the Norwegian Football Cup five times with Rosenborg. He participated in the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competi ...

11 times with Rosenborg and played 71 Champions League matches and 100 matches including the qualification matches. He is third on the list of most appearances in the Norwegian Premier Division. He is looked upon as a hero among supporters of Rosenborg because he has always been loyal to the club without having played abroad where the salaries are higher. He is also highly respected among both players and fans of other Norwegian clubs. The number 6 jersey he used in Rosenborg was retired in his honor. This is the only time Rosenborg has retired a jersey number. Roar Strand has played over 400 matches in the Norwegian Tippeliga. Match number 400 was against HamKam on Sunday 21 September 2008. Sunday 19 April 2009 he played match number 600 for Rosenborg BK. That includes Norwegian top division, Norwegian Cup, European cups and Royal League. Strand shares a European record with

Manchester United Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

's Ryan Giggs of scoring in 21 consecutive top flight seasons. That equals

Pelé Edson Arantes do Nascimento (; born 23 October 1940), known as Pelé (), is a Brazilian former professional footballer who played as a forward. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time and labelled "the greatest" by FI ...

, but is behind Romario, who scored in 23 consecutive seasons. Strand is one of only 19 players in Champions League history to have made 100 or more appearances in the competition for the same club.

International career

Strand played for various youth teams between 1986 and 1989 before he was called up to the Norway U21 national team in 1990, where he played ten games and scored six goals. In 1994, he was called up to the senior national team's squad for the

1994 World Cup The 1994 FIFA World Cup was the 15th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national soccer teams. It was hosted by the United States and took place from June 17 to July 17, 1994, at nine venues across the country. The United States ...

in the United States, but he did not play. His debut came on 5 June in a 2–0 loss against Sweden in the preparation for the World Cup. Strand played in the

1998 World Cup The 1998 FIFA World Cup was the 16th FIFA World Cup, the football world championship for men's national teams. The finals tournament was held in France from 10 June to 12 July 1998. The country was chosen as the host nation by FIFA for the ...

in France and in the

2000 European Football Championship The 2000 UEFA European Football Championship, also known as Euro 2000, was the 11th UEFA European Championship, a association football, football tournament held every four years and organised by UEFA, the sport's governing body in Europe. The ...

in Belgium and the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. He retired from the national team in 2003, despite pressure for him to carry on. He played 42 games and scored four goals for Norway.

Career statistics

Honours

Rosenborg *

(16): 1990,

1992 File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment building in Amsterdam after two of its engines ...

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson Ma ...

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake strike ...

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 800, causing the plane to crash and killing everyone on b ...

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school s ...

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a multi-national coalition in an invasion of Afghanistan ...

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains independence from Indonesia and ...

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, disintegrated during reentry into Atmosphere of Earth, Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an 2002– ...

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 60 ...

, 2006,

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...

Norwegian Cup The Norwegian Football Cup ( no, Norgesmesterskapet i fotball for herrer) is the main knockout cup competition in Norwegian football. It is run by the Football Association of Norway and has been contested since 1902, making it the oldest footbal ...

: 1990,

Individual * Kniksen award as midfielder of the year in

*Kniksen's Honorary Award in

* Norwegian Football Association Gold Watch

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Strand, Roar 1970 births Living people Sportspeople from Trondheim Norwegian footballers Rosenborg BK players Molde FK players Eliteserien players Kniksen Award winners Norway international footballers Norway youth international footballers 1994 FIFA World Cup players 1998 FIFA World Cup players UEFA Euro 2000 players Association football midfielders