Strand Larsen signed for Palace from Wolverhampton Wanderers in a club-record deal, signing a four-and-a-half year contract.
The forward hails from the small, picturesque coastal town of Halden, in the Østfold region. With both his mother and father renowned for their goalscoring exploits in local football leagues, Strand Larsen grew up an all-round sportsman, taking a keen interest in tennis, ice hockey and golf.
But it was following in his parents’ footsteps that his talents truly shone as a teenager, developing with local club Kvik Halden FK before joining a more established top-flight team in Sarpsborg as a teenager.
The scoreline on his senior footballing debut – a cup game against Drobak-Frogn – read a little more like a cricket score: 10-1 to Sarpsborg, with 17-year-old Strand Larsen netting a hat-trick. ‘Howzat’ for an introduction to life in the big leagues?
A year later, Strand Larsen made 10 appearances for Sarpsborg – including four matches in the UEFA Europa League – attracting overtures from abroad, with Gennaro Gattuso – then an academy coach at AC Milan – a known admirer.
A season-long loan to the Italian giants’ Primavera youth team followed, and with it a spell training alongside the likes of Gonzalo Higuaín, Krzysztof Piątek and Lucas Paquetá. He returned as a first-team regular for Sarpsborg, playing 23 times in the 2019 Eliteserien season.
During this time, Strand Larsen had proven prolific for Norway at youth level, scoring at the 2017 U17s Euros and representing his country at every age group up to the U21s, where he netted 11 times in just 16 appearances.
Further foreign offers came flooding in, with Strand Larsen electing to move to Groningen the Netherland’s Eredivisie in the summer of 2020. On his debut against PSV, playing alongside Arjen Robben, he registered an assist. In November, he earned his senior Norway debut against Austria, and by the end of the campaign, he finished as Groningen’s top scorer, totalling 14 goal involvements (nine goals, five assists) in just 30 games.
The following season, Strand Larsen hit the front, scoring 17 times in all competitions to win the club’s Player of the Year award. La Liga and Celta Vigo were next to come calling at the start of 2022/23.
The Norwegian once again excelled, not just in scoring goals but also teeing them up, netting 18 goals and assisting nine times in 74 games – finishing as his club’s top goalscorer in 2023/24, and earning the nickname Xurxo, the Galician form of his name.
With his tall frame, athletic build and ability to read, link and finish passages of play, Strand Larsen was always destined for English football’s top-flight – and it was Wolverhampton Wanderers who secured his signature ahead of 2024/25.
Multi-lingual – fluent in both Spanish and English – and charismatic, his adaptation to English football was seamless. It took the then-24-year-old just two Premier League matches to find the back of the net, his first goal arriving against Chelsea at Molineux.
By the end of November, he has scored six times in 13 matches – his catalogue a variety of finishes – before a run of six more goals in six matches in the spring earned him a Premier League player of the Month nomination for March.
Strand Larsen’s debut season in English football concluded with 14 goals and five assists in 38 games – two of those against, of course, Crystal Palace (scoring at both Molineux and Selhurst Park).
The total was Wolves’ second-best of the season behind Matheus Cunha, but was also enough to make him Wolves' record-scoring debutant in a Premier League season.
Earlier this campaign, he scored Norway’s fourth goal in a 4-1 win over Italy – managed, ironically, by former coach Gattuso – to secure his nation’s place at the 2026 World Cup finals. In January 2026, he registered his first hat-trick in English football in a 6-1 win over Shrewsbury at Molineux.
Following months of transfer speculation, the 25-year-old arrived at SE25 determined to add a few more spectacular moments to his already impressive collection, now in the red and blue of Palace.
He made his debut on 8th February 2026, completing the full 90 minutes in a 1–0 win away at rivals Brighton & Hove Albion.
Just three days later, he marked his home debut with a brace against Burnley, opening with a fierce half-volley before a superb stooping header from Jefferson Lerma’s cross, a strike that earned him February’s Goal of the Month.
Strand Larsen carried that momentum into Europe, scoring his first Palace goal in continental competition in the UEFA Conference League semi-final against Shakhtar Donetsk.
In the away leg in Kraków, with Palace under pressure, he latched onto a pass from Daichi Kamada, feinted to shoot, cut inside and lifted a delicate finish over the goalkeeper. The goal won April’s Goal of the Month and Goal of the Season as Palace secured the trophy.
He finished his debut campaign with four goals and one assist in 22 appearances, several coming at decisive moments in a memorable European run.
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