Presenting Andreas Schjelderup – the Norwegian Viking ready to take over Lisbon | OneFootball

At the start of the January transfer window, Portuguese giants Benfica announced the signing of 18-year-old Andreas Schjelderup.

The young Norwegian joined the Lisbon club after a long and competitive transfer battle between some of Europe’s biggest clubs, and he has arrived with huge expectations.

Danish football journalist Toke Theilade has closely monitored Schjelderup’s career to date and tells PortuGOAL why he is such an exciting prospect.

From one talent factory to another

Born in Bodø in the northern Norway, Schjelderup naturally started playing for the local side, Bodø-Glimt. At the time, the club was far from the powerhouse they are today, constantly bouncing between the top flight and the second tier. However, they had a huge focus on the youth department, and Schjelderup benefited from this.

He’s been a stable presence on the Norwegian youth national teams since he became eligible at 15, and his talent didn’t go unnoticed. At the age of 16, he was chased by clubs from Holland, Italy and Spain but opted for a transfer to Danish side FC Nordsjælland.

The Danes are famous for their work with youth, and over the years, they have sent players such as Emre Mor, Stanislav Lobotka, Kamaldeen Sulemana, Mikkel Damsgaard and Mohamed Kudus on to bigger destinations.

Despite his young age, Schjelderup only had to spend six months on the youth team before being promoted to the first team. Following the winter break in the 2020/21 season, he became a regular in the starting lineup in the spring with 16 games and 12 starts to his name. His debut came at home in a 0-1 defeat to Brøndby at home, but he still impressed. Schjelderup went to score three goals in his first season, and earned himself the label of the league’s most exciting young player.

The following season, the young Norwegian took another step up as he started 16 games in the league and contributed with four goals. Although the final output in terms of goals and assists were still less than hoped for, he managed to take some visible steps forward. Schjelderup improved his passing significantly in his second season in the Superliga, and he started to take more risks. He almost trebled his number of long passes (32m+) and raised his accuracy on these by ten percent. He also increased his passing accuracy on both FCN’s own half as well as his forward passes, while decreasing the backwards pass percentage according to stats from the Superliga website.

With 1.5 years of experience of first team football in the luggage, Schjelderup entered this season eager to truly live up to the hype. And that he did.

Him and the rest of the team started the season in excellent form, winning four games in a row to start the campaign with the Norwegian scoring three goals. By the end of the autumn, Nordsjælland led the league, and Schjelderup had ten goals to his name and was league’s top scorer.

During the season, as his breakthrough became increasingly evident, it became clear that it would be difficult for the club to keep him on the books. Every week new European giants were linked with the young Norwegian, and every week the price went up as he delivered another stellar performance.

In the end, Benfica won the sweepstake for one of Europe’s most exciting young players, and Nordsjælland will have to try and win the club’s second ever championship without their talisman.

What does Schjelderup bring to Benfica?

The young Norwegian is just the latest in a long series of young Nordsjælland players moving to some of Europe’s biggest clubs. Despite Kudus’ impressive performances at Ajax and for Ghana, Sulemana’s dominance in Ligue 1, and Lobotka’s championship run with Napoli in Italy, Schjelderup appears to be the best and most promising of them all.

He is a versatile midfielder, able to play on both wings and centrally as the main playmaker. He has even been fielded as a second striker in some games, but played mostly on the left wing at Nordsjælland.

Schjelderup is incredibly gifted technically and is able to take on defenders one on one and make them look silly. Either getting pass them with skills or simply with his speed and acceleration.

He is also a highly skilled finisher. During all his three seasons in the Superliga, Schjelderup has exceeded his expected goals (xG). He has scored 17 goals from an xG of 11.2. Exceeding xG over multiple seasons in a row is a highly impressive accomplishment, and it speaks volume to his level and maturity.

This season he has ten goals from an xG of just 5.6. He furthermore boasts the highest scoring rate of any player with at least three goals as 43.5 percent of his shots have found the back of the net. With just 23 finishes, he is thus insanely efficient in front of goal. Although a scoring percentage that high is unlikely to be sustainable long term, his xG stats shows that he remains an excellent finisher.

Schjelderup can do pretty much anything you want from an offensive player. He is fast, he can dribble, his finishing is excellent, he has a good eye for his teammates, and his passing skills are great. His positioning on the pitch is also of high quality, and he understands how to find open space and is capable of entering the opposing penalty box in dangerous positions. In fact, all his ten goals this season have come from inside the penalty box.

When looking at the statistics, one could easily knock Schjelderup for not setting his opponents up to score. Weirdly enough, he never managed to record an assist in the Superliga. Criticizing him for this would be a mistake however. This season, he has created the fourth most open chances in the Superliga according to Superliga.dk. He’s 24th among all players in the league in chances created. Meaning he does, in fact, set up his teammates, but he’s been unlucky with variance.

Although Schjelderup was an expensive signing, Benfica have gotten their hands on one of the most exciting young prospects in all of Europe. He’s received a top-class education at Bodø and Nordsjælland, and he proved in the autumn that he’s ready for the next step in his career. It didn’t take him long to make an impact in the Superliga after moving to Denmark at the age of 16, and he should go on to make a similarly fast impact at Benfica after a bit of adjustment time.