The machine rages on: Erling Haaland producing the goods in Norway's remarkable rise
MACHINE: Norway's Erling Haaland during a training session at Miami Stadium. Pic: Bradley Collyer/PA Wire.
Even now in its quietest phase, this unremitting World Cup still wants us to only go forward. Boston, LA next, then Miami, maybe Kansas, on to Dallas. But its breakout star has taught us the value in slowing down, even going back.
A 20-second clip taken by a fan in the stands in New Jersey during last week’s Last 16 clash between Brazil and Norway captured Erling Haaland’s rambling. It would all end with him beasting above familiar foe Gabriel to bullet home an opener. But what came before? A stroll sideways, a couple of steps back, almost a stop.
On Saturday night in Miami a quarter-final, and England, are next. But what came before often matters. So let’s go back somewhere else: August 6, 2017. Two weeks after turning 17, Haaland scored the first top-flight goal of his career, a winner for Molde against Tromso. Watching the goal again it’s remarkable how similarly he bodies the Tromso defender, as he did Gabriel nine years later, to head home.
On that 2017 day, Norway’s national team sat 88th in FIFA’s world rankings. An all-time low. For context, Martin O’Neill’s Ireland were 62 places higher, at 26th in the world at the time. From all the way down there to here, this viking voyage hasn’t just been a four-week mission across America but much a much longer odyssey of rebirth and maturation.
"I think we are changing the nation. It took some time,” Haaland said in the aftermath of Norway’s greatest day last Sunday. “I said that we've been growing balls now over time.”
The second line is both symptom and outcome. Watching him up close over these weeks, the eyes tell you that Haaland is playing looser and freer in red and white than he does in the blue of Manchester or any of the other club shades which came before.
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There is not a sinner in North American who is having a better summer than Haaland. It has helped him deliver massive moment after massive moment, at times quite literally carrying half of Norway on his shoulders in wild scenes of celebration.
But that looseness in interviews and his own self-produced offerings to the world have made him this tournament’s superhero and superstar. It’s perhaps a sign both of how much bigger the World Cup is than everything and how much further European club football still has to go that, in spite of being one of the most dominant figures in the game for six years, Haaland has still managed to turn this into a breakout moment.
Americans have fallen in love with him. Mexicans and Canadians too. Across the Pacific he has become a sensation in China, where they now call him their 'Ha Bao’ or Baby Ha. An NBC report from Beijing this week reported that “since launching his official account on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, just over a month ago, Haaland has amassed 5.8 million followers, more than the population of Norway”.
Norway are one victory away from a historic World Cup semifinal, but Erling Haaland has already won over China's social media users. After greeting fans in Chinese mandarin, he was flooded with hilarious memes, fan art, AI creations and even giant scallion tributes. Now, as… pic.twitter.com/wDZYIq93KJ
— CGTN America (@cgtnamerica) July 10, 2026
In cartoons, memes, hype videos and Google search results featuring vikings rowing across the screen, the striker has filled timelines across the globe. A quote from one new Chinese fan was telling: “Cristiano Ronaldo is a superstar we look up to from afar. Haaland feels more like one of our close friends.”
Humbleness and heroism is a potent mix. Friendship is also at the heart of Norway’s generational rise. Haaland, captain Martin Odegaard, his midfield partner Sander Berge, defenders Kristoffer Ajer and Leo Østigård and a few more all came up together to change things forever. That quintet were all born within two years of one another.
Now Haaland is the world’s charismatic, goofy friend. Swapping a horned viking helmet — “people like to see me wear the hat” — for a Stetson in Texas, Haaland shared video of himself boot shopping while wearing a ‘Y’all can kiss my Dallas’ T-shirt. “I like Americans,” he said. “They’re hilarious. I like the way they are.”
Specifically because of the way they are, Americans have gone all in. On Thursday CBS News dispatched a correspondent to Manchester to try Haaland’s 6000-calorie-a-day diet, quaffing raw milk and struggling to finish tomahawk steaks.
Finishing has not been an issue for Haaland or Norway, here or anywhere else in recent times. In a 22-game stretch going back to November 2024 they’ve lost just twice, one of which was the group stage finale here where he rested almost his entire starting XI, the other a 2-1 friendly defeat to the Netherlands in March. They have scored in 21 of those, Haaland doing the heaviest lifting.
For all of his scorching of the record books at club level, his international exploits are even more absurd. Since 2024 he has scored 35 goals in 25 internationals. While the golden boot race here is the most compelling we’ve seen at any World Cup, none of Lionel Messi, Harry Kane or Kylian Mbappe come close to Haaland’s goalscoring rate for his country. With 62 goals in 54 caps, he could genuinely afford to go through a year-long international drought and still sport a goal-per-game ratio.
Ståle Solbakken has built his team to absolutely maximize Haaland’s unique skillset. A pacy winger outside him on the left, Antonio Nusa and Oscar Bobb sometimes swapping that role, another hard-running physical powerhouse down the right in Alexander Sørloth. Odegaard, Berge and the terrific Patrick Berg are behind, but not too far, in midfield. More Norse giants to join the fray at set-piece time. It’s one hell of a mix.
Can it get them to a semi-final? Analysis this week showed that Ezri Konsa has been the meanest defender Haaland has faced in the Premier League. But club analyses only stretch so far in the international game, particularly into the white hot heat of a tournament where momentum, and heat itself, are among so many factors harder to corral.
Just like every other day since June 11, Haaland is relishing Saturday’s tryst with Thomas Tuchel’s men in Miami where temperatures could top 40C. It’s a meeting of two nations who feel there is a sense of destiny about what they’re doing here but Norway don’t carry the scars of unfulfilled days.
Their legs should be fresher too. “There are some clear favourites out there, England is one of them,” he said Thursday. “I think all of you should put every single pressure on the English lads.”
Finishing with Erling & Leo😂 pic.twitter.com/7I2Hi6sdDQ
— Fotballandslaget (@nff_landslag) July 10, 2026
After his media duties, Haaland got down to some heading drills alongside Østigård, the shaven-headed Genoa centre-back who is another from viking central casting. The Norwegian FA were kind enough to release a short clip.
Haaland does everything, every last thing, at full pelt and with a mad manic smile. He’s throwing himself through the air, clattering into inflatable markers, celebrating each buried header by snorting the nostrils and straining his neck even more forward than cartoons and memes do. When he takes a heavy, frenzied fall there is no sharp intake of breath from coaches but laughs.
"Come on Haaland,” one shouts. "Du er en maskin.” You are a machine.
He is. A remarkable machine producing all the goods in this remarkable rise. From 88th in the world to humbling Brazil and now the brink of its final four. The machine rages on.
Player Age Caps Goals GPG
Messi 39 204 125 0.61
Kane 32 119 85 0.71
Mbappe 27 104 64 0.61
Haaland 25 54 62 1.15.
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