Norway’s Viking hordes are a joyous symbol of this World Cup. African fans never got the same chance
OUTNUMBERED: A lone Ivory Coast fan stands among Norway fans during the Round Of 32 match at Dallas Stadium. African fans have had huge issues getting World Cup visas. Pic: FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images
Erling Haaland fixed his horned Viking hat and then flicked his blonde tassels forward to complete the look.
He put his hands on his hips and stood statuesque in the corner of Texas he’d just captured, his conquest across America rolling on into the Last 16.
"People like to see me wearing the Viking hat,” Haaland told a pitch-side TV interviewer. We sure do.
Over his left shoulder and his right were two of the three banks of deep Norwegian red that had amassed at one end of the staggeringly enormous bowl of Dallas Stadium.
Most of the time they call this place Jerry World, a cathedral built at the behest of Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. It’s Erling’s World now.
There’s no cultural or technical name for shade of red Norwegians wear on their chests and wave from their flagpoles. It’s simply called høirødt, or ‘deep red’.
Those who wear it have rapidly become one of the joyous symbols of this North America World Cup summer.
Thirty minutes after full-time when Haaland and skipper Martin Odegaard re-emerged still in their all-white away kits but with flip-flops now on their feet, they made their way to the fourth swelled block of red: the family and loved ones who’d amassed behind Norway’s bench.
Haaland had swapped the horned helmet for a Stetson now and it too suited him down to the ground.
Two and a half tiers up, another Viking row routine was rumbling out of the concourse: Huuuuuuuuh…Huuuuuuuuh…Huuuuuuuuh! They’ll now row back to New Jersey, an arena they’ve already invaded and overrun in this tournament, in time for a Last 16 clash with Brazil on Sunday afternoon.
Côte d’Ivoire hadn’t capitulated easily here in a gripping if never truly great Tuesday lunchtime clash.
Amad Diallo’s scintillating and mostly solo equaliser, Nicolas Pépé’s little flick playing a pretty part in it, had brought them level.
In injury time, the Manchester United winger could have sent another 2026 knockout game to extra time but Ørjan Nyland got an almighty left paw to bat away his free-kick.
Those in brilliant orange had cleared out of the stadium while Norwegian players, family and fans still celebrated. There hadn’t been all that many of them to begin with.
Just one thinner block behind their own bench then some scatters of six or seven fans specked around.
That colour scheme should be a permanent and shameful stain on this tournament. One which cannot be moved past as we begin to focus in on mouth-watering clashes of the game’s blue bloods to come over the next two and a half weeks.
Norway’s brilliant fans will be an enduring image of America’s World Cup because they were able to be. Their counterparts from Côte d’Ivoire never got that same chance.
Nor did the Senegalese fans, so vastly outnumbered in the group clash with Norway in New Jersey.
Markwayne Mullin is from this general part of the world, his home state of Oklahoma about 100 miles due north of Dallas Stadium.
He’s the recently appointed Secretary of Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security.
On the eve of this Last 32 meeting, Mullin held a briefing of sorts and the conversation moved to World Cup topics. With no little glee, he spoke of being “so happy” that Iran had been knocked out.
“I was so happy when we were able to pull their visas and said they could leave the US soil,” he said. “I might’ve sung a song or two or maybe even danced a happy dance.”
Mullin is a plumber by trade and, one assumes, got his current job because there are no depths to which he won’t go as he champions the nativist messaging of his commander in chief.
Just as Gianni Infantino has debased himself in the White House in the run-up to this World Cup, many more will continue to do so after it’s gone.
Reportedly by their thousands, Côte d’Ivoire fans, like so many from Africa’s qualifiers, were told they would not be welcome in Trump’s America this summer.
Julien Kouadio Adonis, president of Ivory Coast’s fan group, the National Committee of Elephants Supporters, spoke of waves of visa rejections in the weeks before the tournament. For those who did get approved, there was a $15,000 bond to navigate.
Infantino trumpeted that policy eventually being lifted but it was all too late.
Even in-tournament, the rejections have continued. DR Congo superfan, Michel Kuka Mboladinga, who went global this year for standing statuesque as the country’s first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, attened the team's game in Mexico but couldn't get into America. Cape Verde goalkeeper Vozinha also went viral after his opening gamer heroics against Spain. In his man-of-the-match press conference he lamented that his mother wasn't there because she couldn't get a visa.
“It’s a form of segregation that doesn’t dare speak its name, but the proof is there,” Adonis told the “No European country has faced this kind of restriction. Why Africa?”
Not just Africa by the way. The Caribbean too. The noise and colour Haitian fans brought to Philadelphia in defeat to Brazil and in Atlanta when celebrating Wilson Isidor’s screamer was a joy to behold.
Days after Haiti exited the tournament, America’s vanquished Supreme Court green-lit Trump’s plan to expel over 300,000 Haitian migrants from this country very soon.
On Wednesday, this World Cup moves into its second calendar month.
Three weeks have already passed since the tournament’s eve when Somali referee Omar Abdulkadir Artan was denied entry into America to officiate at it. Artan made it as far as US soil only to be turned back.
Thousands of his fellow Africans never got that far.
Wednesday’s slate of Last 32 action features two more Euro-African clashes: England against DR Congo in Atlanta and Senegal meeting Belgium in Seattle.
It wouldn’t take much thinking time to surmise which way Markwayne Mullin, a man who doesn’t strike you as doing a whole lot of thinking himself, would prefer those two games go.
Slowly, and with the satisfaction of their historic run still written all over them, Haaland and his hordes eventually made their way towards the exits in Dallas. New Jersey calls them back.
The very last clan to clear wore cowboy hats and Norwegian jerseys with No.20 on the back.
It was Antonio Nusa’s family, who had watched as the 21-year-old scored a quite gorgeous opener nearly two hours earlier.
It was a gift of a goal to bestow on every one of the 67,000 watching in here and millions watching on.
Nusa is Nigerian-Norwegian, and in his own way, like millions more, is a testament to the untold benefits, the unpredictable beauty that comes from the free movement of people.
His family will never forget being here for his moment of glory. Good thing, then, that they presumably had Norwegian passports and not Nigerian ones.
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