Manchester City striker Erling Haaland is leading Norway in their first World Cup appearance in a generation and there is a belief in the country that they can go far
Erling Haaland will make his World Cup debut when Norway take on Iraq in their opening group game
In Norway, optimism abounds. The nation is back at the World Cup for the first time in 28 years and in Erling Haaland they have arguably the best No.9 in football.
In a tournament which offers opportunity across eight games and five weeks, Norway are being backed as dark horses by plenty of pundits and fans, and World Cup fever is catching.
“The optimism in Norway is big,” said former national team and Premier League striker Jan Åge Fjørtoft, speaking to the Manchester Evening News ahead of the tournament. “We are just discussing who we are going to meet in the final! That is the boiling point in Norway right now. I find myself being the one to hold back a bit.”
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Haaland is the primary reason for such belief – together with Martin Odegaard they have two of the leading players in world football. Their supporting cast isn’t bad either and although they are in a challenging group with France and Senegal as well as opening opponents Iraq, the prospect of the top three qualifying means Norway are fancied to reach the knockout stages at least.
More than 30,000 Norwegians braved freezing temperatures to welcome their superstars back to Oslo when World Cup qualification was confirmed, and they believe they can thrive in the heat of North America.
Norway blitzed qualifying, comfortably topping a group containing Italy and breezing past the Azzurri twice. So expectation levels are rising in a football-mad nation. Huge crowds are expected to take in games on big screens up and down the country, while thousands will travel to the States to watch them in action in a World Cup for the first time since 1998, where they reached the last-16 before being beaten by Italy.
“It is the first time in a while and many people might see it as their only opportunity to watch Norway in a World Cup,” says journalist Steffen Stenersen of VG Sporten.
That includes Haaland, born two years after Norway’s last World Cup appearance.
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“It was a lot of pressure,” he said, speaking to ESPN. “It is a lot of pressure now still, but yeah, I could feel it ever since I started with the national team, the pressure [to get to a World Cup]. To qualify for the World Cup is a really special thing. I’m looking forward to it. It’s going to be amazing. Finally.”
And Norway got there in style, plundering 37 goals across eight matches with Haaland hitting 16 of them. The Manchester City striker is the superstar of this side but there is more to Norway than Haaland.
“It certainly helps having him!” Stenersen added. “Erling and Martin Odegaard are world class players. But we have four or five players below those that who are on a level that would have made them the big stars in Norway 10 years ago, like Antonio Nusa, Sander Berge (of Fulham) .. . . so it is not only about those two. We have four, five, six exciting players behind them to make a good XI. We are a more well-balanced team, not perfect, but one that if we not could beat anyone on a good day, could beat most of them.”
Fjørtoft agrees, affectionately labelling Haaland ‘cartoonish’ for his mannerisms and body language but knowing full well how destructive and dominant a player he is. “Erling is world class, he is the greatest footballer we have ever had,” he said. “Martin is a captain who has lifted the Premier League.
“If Erling scores five or six goals in a World Cup then we know we can go far. We didn’t concede a lot of goals in qualification but in Norway we have a tradition of not playing as well in the tournament as we do in qualification.
“But we have a pragmatic national coach in Stale Solbakken and the first thing he did was build the leadership around Martin and Erling and that has made them own the national team.”
Fjørtoft , who played in the 1994 World Cup for Norway in America, is well placed to talk about what it means to represent the country in a major tournament.
“When we qualified in ’94 it was the first time since 1938 so we haven’t been in a lot of World Cups. It was a surprise to us all to qualify,” he recalled. “For this generation they maybe didn’t expect to come there because of our history, but they just had to prove to themselves that they could get the next step.
“For a Norwegian it has always been difficult to win big trophies abroad. So after their careers this generation, whether they win the Champions League as Erling has, there will still be that feeling of representing your country in a World Cup
“When football players get buried there is nothing in their obituary about how much money you have made, it is how much you have won, the number of caps and playing in a World Cup. It is a great honour.
“If I had a tattoo I would put 1994 on it because that was my highlight of my career.”
Maybe a few of the Class of 2026 will be getting inked up come July.
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