Monica Knudsen is a former Norwegian

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 footballer

Football (soccer)

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

 and Olympic champion.

She played for the club Asker in the Toppserien league, debuted for the Norwegian national team

Norway women's national football team

The Norway women's national football team represents Norway in international women's football. The team, controlled by the Football Association of Norway, are former European, World and Olympic champions and thus one of the most successful national teams...

 in 1996, and played 87 matches for the national team.

Knudsen was with the Norway team that won Gold at the 2000 Summer Olympics

2000 Summer Olympics

The Sydney 2000 Summer Olympic Games or the Millennium Games/Games of the New Millennium, officially known as the Games of the XXVII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was celebrated between 15 September and 1 October 2000 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...

 in Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

 . She played as a substitute in the semifinal and was one of the starting eleven in the final, being substituted after 90 minutes, before the start of extra time.

At the end of 2009 Knudsen was appointed chief trainer for LSK Kvinner FK football club.