From the ground of the Norwegian side Melhus IL, you can almost see the house where Ingrid Engen grew up. Her best friend and the former player Maiken Bakke drives The Athletic there, but she points out Engen used to run the route every day from 2005-2011.
Melhus, a small town in the north of the country, is where Engen is from. Bakke used to play with the OL Lyonnes midfielder turned centre-back when they were kids.
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“I used to think that Ingrid and I would go back to playing Melhus at some point and retire here,” Bakke says, staring at the pitch. “But, you know what? I’m starting to think that’s not going to happen.”
They met while playing for the village’s other team, Gimse, in 2012. They had previously faced each other when Engen played for Melhus IL. At first, they didn’t get on, but now Engen will be a bridesmaid at Bakke’s wedding.
“I think I’ll have to hold it on New Year’s Eve because Ingrid has to be there — and she can only come here twice a year,” she says with a laugh.
Saturday’s Women’s Champions League final will be a special occasion for Engen. It is her sixth appearance in European football’s showpiece event, and OL Lyonnes’ opponents are the team she played for from 2021-2025, Barcelona. The 28-year-old will become the only player apart from Conny Pohlers to feature in the Champions League final for three different clubs (Wolfsburg, Barcelona and Lyon).
Her whole family will be there to watch as the game is being played in Oslo, around 290 miles (470 kilometres) from her hometown.
There is added significance for Engen: she is set to face her partner, the Barcelona and Spain centre-back Mapi Leon.
Before the final, The Athletic travelled to her hometown to discover the player’s roots.
Melhus has a population of around 18,000 and is located 30 minutes south of Trondheim.
It is one of Norway’s most densely forested areas, which is evident everywhere you look. It is a peaceful village surrounded by nature, and built on a strategically important site during the Viking age. Perhaps that is where Engen draws her warrior spirit from.
The Engen family home stands opposite an old farmhouse. We are welcomed by her mother, Gudrun Syrstad, and the resemblance to her daughter is immediately striking.
Growing up in Melhus gave Engen a sense of calm she has always had, but Syrstad jokes, “Melhus was not a place for her. She is like me, a city person. In this town, we are actually really good at sports,” Bakke says. “We have a lot of good skiers and football players. It was a great place to grow up for people who are interested in sports.”
Syrstad has always played the piano but says her daughter was never interested in it. Ingrid’s thing was sport.
“She had a natural talent; I don’t know where she got it from, because we’re not a football family,” Syrstad says, although she adds that her father was accomplished in various sports.
“Ingrid started quite late at football, at the age of seven. She was multi-talented. She was good at lots of sports — ski, athletics — and took winning very seriously. Even when playing cards.
“She started training with girls, and I remember one day she came back home from a training session in tears because she said the team wasn’t good enough, that she needed more. At the age of nine, she started training with boys.
“She enjoyed playing with boys because the standard of the team was higher. Two of her team-mates now play in Europe, so it was a good team. At that age, not all girls would have felt comfortable with that, but she wasn’t afraid.”
“She was very thin, very small. When the boys got muscles, they were too strong for her.”
In 2012, Engen changed teams and started playing with the girls again in Gimse, with Bakke.
“They got a lot of attention because the whole team were really, really good,” says Gimse board director Kristin Aune Welschinger.
“Having players like Ingrid is huge, because the coaches are parents, so they’re local people. That shows you also have to put in your own effort and your own work if you want to achieve your dreams.
“It’s really important for these girls to have someone to look up to, to know that you don’t have to switch to a really good team to become a good player.”
In 2014, Engen met someone who would become a mentor to her: Stale Bratseth, one of her teachers at the Kristen Videregaende secondary school she attended from 2014 to 2017.
Bratseth was also a footballer. His older brother Rune starred as a libero for Werder Bremen from 1987 to 1994, winning two Bundesliga titles and representing Norway at the 1994 World Cup in the United States.
“We had some deep talks — more philosophical or about life,” he says of Engen. “I made her ask herself, ‘Why do I play?’. Do I play because it’s expected of me? Do I play because my parents wanted to, because my friends think I’m going to be good? Or is it based on some deeper joy?
“I think she played mostly because it was a joy — it was the core of her being. She could use her abilities for the best for her life, but also for others”.
“Even if I were her teacher, she taught me a lot of things as well. She taught me the relentless belief in herself. And that’s something I also hope to use in my life.
“She always believed she was going to go far. She knew what she had to do and she knew she would succeed. Her mentality (makes her) a role model. Also for me, because sometimes you lose faith in yourself. And she never did.”
“In middle school, she was so dedicated, so driven — she always gave it her all,” adds her friend and former team-mate Bakke.
“I remember when we’d get home after school and I wanted to relax or do something else, but she’d say, ‘No, I have to do my homework first’. Her dedication has always been there.”
She began to attract interest from major clubs and, soon after, the Norwegian national team. First, she moved to Trondheims-Om (now Rosenborg) from 2014 to 2018, then to Lillestrom Kvinner from 2018 to 19, before arriving at Wolfsburg in July 2019. She spent two seasons in Germany before receiving the call from Barcelona in 2021.
“When Barcelona showed interest in her, it was a big ‘yes’”, her mother says. “It had always been her dream,” Bakke says.
Engen was moving to one of the greatest clubs in the world who had just won their first Women’s Champions League title. But she also faced a change in culture and language.
“Right from the start, all her colleagues were welcoming her with open arms and she really liked that, the country’s culture and the way the people are in Spain,” her mother says.
Everyone spoke Spanish in the Barca dressing room, but Engen did not know the language when she first moved. Then she met Leon.
“I was calmer when she found Maria (Mapi is her nickname) because then I knew she had someone every day who she could talk to because she was new there,” says Bakke.
“I was more worried before that, in the beginning, when she told me people were speaking Spanish and she didn’t know the language. I talked to her so much more in the beginning because I wanted to check up on her.”
When her best friend visited her after six months, she was already regularly speaking in Spanish. “She learned so fast,” says Bakke. “I was very impressed.”
Another element to get used to was the pressure at Barca, one of the world’s largest sporting institutions.
“Lyon is also a big club, but the pressure in Barcelona is insane,” says Syrstad. “She didn’t know that before going there.
“I remember a match that Barcelona won 5-1, but the goal they conceded was down to a mistake by Ingrid. She was criticised for that, even though they’d won 5-1. There’s a lot of pressure, but that just shows you have to be really mentally strong. And she is.”
“Ingrid is a really steady player and she brings that level of composure on the ball, the calmness, particularly in the Champions League,” Norway’s head coach Gemma Grainger tells The Athletic. “I’ve seen her with and without the ball, because from a defensive perspective, her leadership and organisation really stands out to me.
“She has the ability. And with the way the game is now in terms of possession, she’s able to step into positions a little bit higher and she’s able to distribute the ball as a centre-back when she’s deeper or if she steps in a little bit higher. That’s definitely one of her strengths.”
Back during her time at Barcelona, her current OL Lyonnes coach Jonatan Giraldez was in charge of the Catalan club. She had always played as a holding midfielder, but Giraldez decided to try her as a centre-back when Leon suffered a meniscus tear in her right knee. Patri Guijarro was the team’s starting defensive midfielder and Keira Walsh had been signed in 2022 in that position.
“It was weird for me,” adds Bakke. “I always imagined her playing in midfield because she’s so smart and she produced good passes. But then I saw her playing as a centre-back, and it was like she was made for it. Her head works differently than others.”
After four successful years in Barcelona, in which she won four Liga F titles, three Copas de la Reina and four Supercopas de Espana, she chose an almost equally demanding next club in OL Lyonnes.
“It was hard for her, but moving to Lyon was a step forward in her career,” Bakke says. “She felt she had to do it and it shows how dedicated she is. Football is now; she is young now.”
“She could have decided to stay at Barcelona, maybe the greatest team in the world,” says her mother. “But she wanted more. She wanted to be a starter in the best matches. That’s (something) special about her — she is always expecting to do something better, to be better and to be on the highest level possible.”
“She has always been like that, in everything,” adds Bakke. “She was always training individually and wanting to be better in things. She’s managed to achieve some amazing things, and just when you think nothing more incredible could happen to her, it keeps happening.”
Engen and Leon were the first Barca players to make their relationship public in 2022. How has preparing for a Champions League final against each other changed things?
“They have decided not to talk about football for a week,” Engen’s mother says. “They know that one will win and one will lose. The person who wins needs to feel happy and to celebrate with her team, and not feel sad for the other person. They have decided to be with their team.”
“I don’t know if there are a lot of couples in the world that have to face their partner in a Champions League final,” Bakke says. “That’s a story to tell when they are older.”
Melhus shaped Engen’s character but her family accepts that she was always made to fly away and dream big, even if she will always have a home there.
Now, she is coming home with the objective of lifting another Champions League title.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Barcelona, Norway, Olympique Lyonnais, Women's Soccer, Women's Champions League
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