The last time Norway appeared at a World Cup, Erling Haaland had not yet been born, making his role in ending that 28-year absence all the more remarkable.
By firing 16 goals across eight qualifying matches, the 25-year-old striker delivered on expectations that had followed him long before he became a global superstar.
Haaland was born in Leeds in 2000, where his father Alf-Inge was playing at the time, making him eligible to represent England as well as Norway.
When Gareth Southgate was asked in 2020 about the possibility of Haaland pulling on an England shirt, the then-manager closed the conversation down quickly and respectfully.
“With players like him, they’re quite clear where they want to play,” Southgate said. “He feels that allegiance to the country that he’s playing for now and you’re always very respectful of that.”
The family relocated to Bryne in Norway three years after Erling’s birth, following Alf-Inge’s retirement through injury that ended his spell at Manchester City.
Haaland’s talent was identified early at Bryne before he joined Molde in 2017, a club managed at the time by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who helped shape him into the forward he is today.
Spells at Red Bull Salzburg and Borussia Dortmund followed, with his time at Dortmund in particular announcing him as one of football’s most dangerous attackers on the world stage.
His move to Manchester City in 2022 felt inevitable to many, given his father’s history with the club and his own well-documented love of English football.
Despite the fame and upheaval that have come with life at City, Haaland has remained deeply connected to his Norwegian roots, regularly returning to his hometown in Rogaland.
“Despite Haaland’s global superstar status, he remains the exact same guy,” Norwegian football journalist Andreas Korssund told BBC Sport.
“He knows exactly where he comes from and regularly visits his small hometown in Rogaland. He is incredibly proud of his roots and always makes himself available to the Norwegian press when representing his country.”
Haaland wears the name Braut Haaland on his national shirt, combining his mother’s maiden name with his father’s surname in a tradition common across Norway.
He has spoken openly about his desire to run a farm in Norway after retirement and is regularly spotted around Oslo, where he also owns an apartment.
“Haaland means everything to Norway,” said Korssund. “He has become an unprecedented superstar in the world’s biggest sport. For a nation of just over 5.5m people to produce one of the absolute greatest footballers on the planet is immense.”
When Norway face Iraq in their opening group match on 16 June, Haaland will carry the hopes of a nation and the unfulfilled World Cup dreams of former stars like Morten Gamst Pedersen, John Carew, Brede Hangeland and John Arne Riise.
However, this Norway side is far from a one-man team, with Martin Odegaard arriving at the tournament fresh from winning the Premier League with Arsenal, and players like Kristoffer Ajer, Jorgen Strand Larsen and Oscar Bobb also in the squad.
“We look at this similarly to what happened with Belgium’s golden generation a few years ago — a relatively small nation that simply bleeds football,” Korssund said.
Haaland’s celebrity profile has grown to match his footballing achievements, with a YouTube channel boasting 1.6 million subscribers and a forthcoming role voicing a Viking character in animated film ViQueens.
Norwegian journalist Lars Sivertsen believes Haaland cuts a slightly different figure from the typical Norwegian sporting hero, given his outward confidence in a culture that traditionally prizes humility.
“He’s confident and can be a little bit brash. He knows his value and he knows his quality and he backs himself,” Sivertsen said.
“That makes him an interesting hero for us, because there will be moments of backlash.”
Haaland has avoided the fate of world-class players such as George Best, Ian Rush, Ryan Giggs and George Weah, who never represented their nations at a World Cup.
“He is now just in a different strata of star than what we are used to from our sporting heroes,” said Sivertsen. “But I think if you look across the country, there is just an extraordinary sense of pride that a player doing the things he does is from our country.”
