After Frank The Fixer Tagliano testifies against his Mafia boss in New York, he enters the Witness Protection Program and makes an unusual demand: he wants to be set up with a new life in the Norwegian small town of Lillehammer or as he calls it, Lilyhammer.

Lucas, a teenage boy, moves to a small town in Norway from Stockholm, Sweden. He falls for Susanne, who is on the girl's football team and is dating the captain of the boy's football team. To get Susanne to like him he joins the boy's team so that he can travel to Oslo to participate in the Norway Cup, a large football tournament.