"Sørloth reached Atlético Madrid by becoming an elite centre-forward. Norway’s problem is that its best centre-forward position already belongs to Haaland."

Alexander Sørloth is 30 years old, plays for Atlético Madrid and has scored goals in six European leagues. None of that journey was orderly. He has been a reserve in Norway, a failed Premier League signing, a prolific loanee, a Bundesliga disappointment and finally one of Spain’s most productive centre-forwards.

Now the late bloomer faces a different problem with Norway. To keep both Sørloth and Erling Haaland in the team, Ståle Solbakken starts him from the right. The role has tactical logic. It also removes Sørloth from the position in which he spent a decade learning how to become dangerous.

A Famous Name Without a Clear Path

Sørloth grew up with a surname already known in Norwegian football. His father, Gøran, won 55 caps for Norway and played at the 1994 World Cup in the United States.

Alexander came through Rosenborg but did not immediately resemble a future Atlético striker. He made only a handful of first-team appearances before joining Bodø/Glimt on loan in 2015. That was the first glimpse of the pattern that would define his career: slow adaptation followed by a violent run of scoring.

After one goal in his first senior season, Sørloth scored 14 times in 29 appearances for Glimt. Ten came in his final 19 matches. Groningen took him to the Netherlands, Midtjylland took him to Denmark, and a strong season there persuaded Crystal Palace to bring him to England in January 2018.

The Premier League move arrived before the player was ready for it.

The Failure That Followed Him

Sørloth played 20 times for Crystal Palace across all competitions and scored once, in the League Cup. He did not score a Premier League goal.

For a large striker, the judgment was predictable. He was considered technically limited, too slow to create his own chances and not dominant enough in the air to justify everything missing from his game. A loan to Gent did little to change the verdict.

Palace’s mistake was not necessarily selling him. It was assuming that the 22-year-old version was complete.

At Trabzonspor, Sørloth finally received a full season as the central reference of an attack. He responded with 24 league goals, won the Turkish Süper Lig scoring title and added seven more in the Turkish Cup. Trabzonspor finished second in the league and won the cup.

RB Leipzig paid an initial €20 million for him in 2020. The move should have confirmed the breakthrough; instead, Sørloth struggled again. He was unable to secure a regular place in a fast, fluid attack and was sent to Real Sociedad on loan.

That could have been the end of his rise. By 25, he had already passed through Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark, England, Belgium, Turkey and Germany. His career looked less like patient development than permanent relocation.

Spain changed it.

Becoming a Striker in Spain

Real Sociedad used Sørloth for two loan spells. He did not produce spectacular numbers immediately, but his movement became cleaner and his contribution with his back to goal improved. Spanish football gave him repeated exposure to low defensive blocks, centre-backs who denied space and attacks built around timing rather than constant transition.

Villarreal then made the decisive commitment in 2023.

Sørloth scored 23 La Liga goals in 2023–24, finishing only one behind Girona’s Artem Dovbyk in the race for the Pichichi. He scored four in a 4–4 draw with Real Madrid. The player who had failed to register a league goal for Crystal Palace was now the second-highest scorer in Spain.

This was the true late breakthrough. Sørloth was 28.

Atlético Madrid signed him in August 2024 after Álvaro Morata’s departure. The attraction was obvious: a 1.95-metre forward with a powerful left foot, experience in La Liga and enough speed to attack space behind a high defensive line. Atlético’s own profile describes the same essentials—strength, aerial ability and that left foot.

He scored 24 goals in his first season, 20 of them in La Liga. Many came from the bench because Diego Simeone also had Julián Álvarez and Antoine Griezmann. Sørloth nevertheless produced one of the most extraordinary displays in the competition’s history: four first-half goals against Real Sociedad, including a hat-trick in approximately four minutes.

He had become elite without ever looking fashionable.

What Simeone Sees

Sørloth’s second Atlético season brought another mixture of goals and uncertainty.

He finished the La Liga campaign with 13 goals in 35 appearances, but played fewer than 2,000 league minutes. His minutes per appearance remained closer to an hour than a full match. A head injury interrupted a strong winter run, and another physical problem affected the spring.

His peak came in February against Club Brugge. Atlético needed to overturn a Champions League play-off deficit; Sørloth scored a hat-trick in a 4–1 victory. UEFA’s technical analysis praised more than the finishes. He held direct passes, connected teammates, attacked the space behind the defence and gave Atlético an exit when the rest of the side had dropped deep.

Simeone’s summary was even simpler: Sørloth possesses something no other Atlético player has.

That does not guarantee a starting place. Álvarez is the more mobile and technically varied forward, while Sørloth changes the match through penalty-area presence and direct play. Simeone has often treated him as a specialist solution rather than the organising centre of the attack.

The distinction has consequences. Sørloth can score at an elite rate and still feel that trust is temporary. During the spring, reports in Spain and Norway linked him with a move. In early June, Atlético and Juventus held talks, with the Italian club seeking a central striker. As of 9 July, he remains an Atlético player, but the club is reportedly open to a substantial offer.

The Argument With Lagerbäck

Sørloth’s most serious dispute with a coach did not happen in Madrid. It came with Norway in October 2020.

Norway had lost 2–1 to Serbia in a European Championship play-off. The defeat extended the country’s absence from major tournaments and triggered a heated internal review. Sørloth strongly criticised the preparation and the tactical decisions made during the match.

Then the disagreement became public.

National-team coach Lars Lagerbäck said Sørloth had accused him and assistant Per Joar Hansen of being incompetent as leaders and football coaches. Sørloth denied using that word. He maintained that the players had been asked for honest feedback and that his criticism concerned preparation and tactics.

The argument continued even after the two believed they had shaken hands on a truce. Lagerbäck condemned Sørloth’s behaviour publicly; Sørloth objected to the coach reopening the dispute. The Norwegian federation eventually announced that Sørloth accepted his form of communication had been wrong. Its final account also acknowledged that the temperature had become too high and both sides had gone too far.

It was not evidence that Sørloth refuses coaching. His career contains too many adaptations for that. It did show a player willing to challenge a plan when he believes preparation or roles have failed—and one whose directness can become destructive when frustration takes over.

Why Norway Puts a Centre-Forward on the Right

Under Solbakken, Sørloth’s role has revived a much older Norwegian idea.

On the team sheet, Norway can appear to use a front three: Sørloth on the right, Haaland through the middle and Antonio Nusa on the left. Sørloth is not expected to behave like a conventional winger. He does not repeatedly isolate a full-back and dribble towards the byline.

Instead, he becomes a wide target forward.

Norway can play diagonally towards him, matching a 1.95-metre striker against a smaller left-back rather than a central defender. Sørloth protects the ball, wins headers and lays possession back to Martin Ødegaard or Julian Ryerson. When the attack develops on the opposite side, he moves into the penalty area as a second striker beside Haaland.

The model recalls Jostein Flo’s role for Norway in the 1990s. Its modern purpose is also clear: it keeps two outstanding finishers in the starting XI while preserving Nusa’s one-against-one threat on the left.

Sørloth himself explained the system in a FIFA interview: Norway can move between 4-4-2 and 4-3-3, with him starting a little farther right and arriving from deeper positions.

The role is intelligent. It is not comfortable in every type of match.

The Cost of Moving Away From Goal

When Norway can play directly, Sørloth’s position works. A high ball towards the right touchline becomes a method of escaping pressure. He can pin a full-back, draw across a centre-back and create the space Haaland attacks.

Against a deep defence, the weaknesses become more visible. Sørloth receives farther from goal, often with his back towards the touchline. He must combine in tight spaces, track the opposing left-back and make longer runs before reaching the penalty area. Those are useful tasks, but none maximises his strongest quality: finishing attacks inside the box.

His World Cup numbers show the tension. Sørloth started four of Norway’s first five matches and played 274 minutes, yet recorded no goal or assist. Against Iraq he attempted two shots, neither on target. Against Senegal he did not take a shot. He was rested against France, then returned for the knockout matches against Côte d’Ivoire and Brazil.

In the round of 16, Solbakken removed him at half-time against Brazil. Oscar Bobb replaced him on the right, Andreas Schjelderup replaced Nusa on the left, and the new attack created both goals in the 2–1 victory.

That does not prove Sørloth was useless. His work as an outlet can tire defenders and help Norway reach the stage at which lighter, more technical substitutes find space. But the Brazil match sharpened the selection question before the quarter-final against England: should Norway begin with physical security or with Bobb’s control and dribbling?

His Form Now

Sørloth enters that decision in a peculiar kind of form.

At club level, the broader season was productive: 13 league goals, six in the Champions League and a first European hat-trick at the age of 30. He remains a rare striker capable of receiving a goalkeeper’s long pass, holding off a defender and finishing the same attack.

For Norway in 2026, the goals have disappeared. He has not contributed directly to a World Cup goal even as the team has reached the quarter-finals. His replacement helped change the Brazil match, and his Atlético future is uncertain.

This is not another Crystal Palace collapse. The player is established now; clubs understand what he can do. The current argument is about use rather than ability.

Sørloth became a late bloomer because his best qualities required the right position, repeated trust and time. Atlético sometimes gives him two of those three. Norway gives him trust but asks him to begin on the right.

The arrangement has helped create the most successful Norwegian team in World Cup history. It has not yet created the best version of Alexander Sørloth.