Norwegian international defender Aage Hareide spent 1982 to 1984 at Carrow Road and credits it as being one of the happiest spells in his career. He departed in April 1984 to manage a furniture manufacturing firm in his native Norway but said that if he was 25 rather than 31, he would have stayed at Norwich as he enjoyed living in Norfolk so much. Being Norfolk born and bred myself, it gives me great pleasure to hear this as Aage's earlier spell in England with Manchester City was less successful. Aage was at Maine Road from September 1981 through to November 1982 and made just 24 appearances and was booked 17 seconds into his debut against Nottingham Forest. He joined Norwich on loan in November 1982 and transferred permanently the following August. He made a total of 54 appearances for the Canaries and scored 3 goals.

Soon after his return to Norway, he was appointed player-coach at Molde FK with whom he had played from 1976 to 1981. He had begun his career at Hodd in 1969. Molde are one of Norway's leading clubs and have produced such starlets as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer who is a regular in Manchester United's first team. One cannot help but wonder if the Norwich management (Deehan, Megson) under the Chase regime were offered Solskjaer but turned him down. Aage resigned from his position as coach at Molde in October 1997 citing personal reasons for his decision. The February 1998 edition of World Soccer magazine reported that Aage had joined Swedish side Helsingborg as coach. In his inaugural season, they won the Swedish Cup. He was linked with a return to Norway with FC Brann Bergen (who also approached Mike Walker) but opted to stay with Helsingborg.

According to The Guardian of 1st June 1999, Aage was appointed as the new manager of Danish giants Brondby following the departure of their manager Ebbe Skovdahl to take over at Aberdeen. Aage was also linked by The Sun to replace Egil Olsen as manager of Wimbledon following their struggle at the bottom of the Premiership and the sacking of Olsen on 1st May 2000. Despite his friendship with Wimbledon's Norwegian owners, Aage has stated that he has a contract with Brondby until 2002 and that he intends to see it out.

After a poor run of results, Aage was sacked by Brondby in the early part of April 2002. Norwegian contacts have since informed me that Aage is to take control at Norwegian side Rosenberg in the winter of 2002 when Nils Arne Eggen retires. This was confirmed by the October 2002 edition of World Soccer. Rosenborg are Scandinavia's leading side after they qualified for their 8th consecutive Champions League campaign and their 11th consecutive Norwegian league title. Success at Rosenberg led to the Norwegian Football Association appointing Hareide as the new national coach as of January 2004.

Hareide was linked with the vacany Norwich City manager's post in October 2007 following Peter Grant's departure but ruled himself out of the running stating that he was hoping to take Norway to the Euro 2008 finals.

On 9th December 2008, Hareide announced that he was stepping down as coach of the Norwegian international team after five years in the role. He cited a lack of motivation as the reason for his decision suggesting that the Norwegian FA needed to appoint someone who could inject new life into the team who are currently bottom of their World Cup qualifying group

On 14th January 2009, the Norwegian press linked Hareide with the Norwich City manager's job following the sacking of Glenn Roeder. After resigning as the Norwegian national team's coach Hareide began working as an expert Premier League commentator for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation

On 10th June 2009 it was announced that he will be coaching Swedish side Örgryte IS. He quit in November 2009 to take charge at Norwegian side Viking. Hareide stepped up to become General Manager during the winter of 2011/12 and was replaced by Spainard Joseph Ruiz. With the team positioned on 10th place on 9 June 2012, Hareide was released by Viking FK because of the bad results.

Following Conny Karlsson's resignation in Helsingborgs IF, the club hired Hareide, the last coach who won the Allsvenskan with Helsingborgs IF, except Karlsson, as head coach until the end of the 2012 season.

In the autumn of 2013, he joined the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation as a commentator.

Despite stating that he would not return to management, he joined Malmo, the reigning Swedish champions, as manager on 9th January 2014. He steered Malmo to a league title and qualification for the group stages of the Champions League two years running in his two seasons in charge.

On 10th December 2015, he was appointed as manager of Denmark, replacing Morten Olsen who stepped down after over 15 years in the job following Denmark’s 4-3 aggregate defeat to Sweden in their Euro 2016 play-offs in November 2015. Hareide takes over on a two-year contract with an option for two further years.

Hareide and Denmark qualified for the World Cup in Russia with a 5-1 win over Martin O'Neill's Republic of Ireland in Dublin on 14th November 2017. The sides had drawn the first leg 0-0. Denmark progressed out of the group stages (being drawn with France, Australia and Peru) but lost in the second round (round of 16) on penalties to Croatia.

On 14th April 2020 it was announced that Hareide had left his role as Denmark's coach. Having led Denmark to the 2020 European Championships, his contract was due to finish after the tournament but the competition was postponed until 2021 due to the Coronavirus pandemic. the Danes have already lined up a successor in Kasper Hjulmand who will take charge at the re-scheduled tournament in 2021. “I think I will look for jobs in football, as long as my health is okay. I feel the last six years – two with Malmo and four with Denmark – everything has gone well,” said Hareide

In September 2020 he returned to Rosenborg as manager. He left Rosenborg in December 2021.

In September 2022 he was appointed as Interim Manager of Malmo.

On 14th April 2023 he was appointed as the new manager of the Icelandic national team.

On 25th November 2024 he resigned as Iceland's manager and the following day announced his retirement from coaching. He had managed Iceland for 20 games, winning eight and drawing two.