Norwegian manager Solbakken marks key milestone after being clinically dead for seven minutes

The team medic Frank Odgaard gave urgent CPR right there on the field, and the emergency crew managed to revive Solbakken inside the ambulance en route to the medical centre.

He remained unconscious for 30 hours and eventually learned of an undiagnosed inborn heart condition. That event compelled him to step away from elite football at just 33 years old, leading him to a thriving career in management where he secured eight domestic championships with Copenhagen.

In a recent episode of the NRK podcast "Drivkreft", he shared his personal account of the ordeal.

Solbakken received an implanted defibrillator and went through various assessments to gauge his physical boundaries.

Dr Peder Langeland Myhre, a senior consultant and professor in the Cardiology Division at the University of Oslo, outlines the procedure in this way:

"Pace" involves prompting the heart using electrical signals from a pacemaker or ICD. Now Solbakken openly discusses his sensations following the cardiac arrest during the evaluation.

"At that point I noticed a pale blue passage, in a manner of speaking. It was a gentle pale blue. Upon regaining consciousness it felt like: “No, I might have lingered there a bit more,” Solbakken recounts.

Solbakken inquired with the medical staff about possible causes for observing a pale blue passage. Their response suggested that “the brain was likely still active.”

At 58 years of age, Solbakken is now guiding Norway into the nations inaugural major tournament appearance in over two decades.

"We have quite a journey ahead. Things are heating up now. Qualification happened back in November, and since then we have only had a handful of friendly internationals."

Norway is set to compete against Iraq, Senegal, and France during the World Cup. Solbakken's immediate challenge involves assembling an initial roster of up to 55 athletes, before trimming it to the definitive 26 players.