MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — There was something ironic in Erling Haaland describing Americans as “kind of hilarious” on Thursday, and not just because portion sizes here seem much more able to account for his 6,000-calorie-a-day diet than those in Europe.
Haaland is 6-foot-5 and 205 pounds. He has flowing blond hair, eats tomahawk steaks, drinks raw milk and scores goals like Pac-Man eats dots.
Before Norway’s Round of 32 match in Dallas, he went shopping for cowboy boots and put it on his YouTube channel, part of an effort to become a household name in America that appears to be working.
It’s a bit reductive to compare him to a viking, but as long as Norway’s fans are still rowing, it’s a bit hard to avoid. For a country that last made a World Cup in 1998, and which had never won a knockout game before this year, it’s hard to imagine a better avatar.
That all is, kind of, hilarious.
“It’s important to joke around, I think,” Haaland said. “I think every one of you kind of ‘know me’ now that I like to joke around a little bit and to have fun. I think that’s a key for my daily life, to joke around and of course train good, focus and prepare well. You also need to joke around. You need to enjoy the moment.
“That’s what we’ve been doing now. Just as we play in the World Cup, we have to enjoy it. Nothing lasts forever. We have to enjoy it while we’re here.”
Every match of the FIFA World Cup will air on either FOX or FOX Sports 1. If you don’t have cable, you can take advantage of a DIRECTV free trial to stream it all.
Prefer to check out the action live and in person? Shop World Cup 2026 tickets on SeatGeek and make sure to use promo code NYPOST10 for $10 off purchases over $250 at checkout if you’re a first-time SeatGeek user.
Serene as Norway have felt at points at this World Cup — Haaland openly dismissed the idea of beating France to win the group stage, saying “They are probably going to win against us, they’re probably going to win the whole tournament” — there is also the fact that they are one of the last eight teams standing.
Norway are the underdogs here against England. That’s obvious, and Haaland himself isn’t hiding from it.
“I think there are some clear favorites out there,” he said. “England’s one of them. I think all of you [reporters] should put every single pressure on the English lads.”
As if the British press needed any encouragement. Still, even after the Three Lions withstood the mighty Azteca down to 10 men for an emotionally stirring Round of 16 win over Mexico, it is entirely possible to picture them going out here.
That is largely down to Haaland. Few would argue he’s the best player in the world, but he may be the most singular.
“To be honest that hunger is not that big when [he’s] training,” Norway’s manager Ståle Solbakken said Friday. “When he trains, when he participates, he is hungry for goals. But on a couple of the training sessions, he hasn’t been all that hungry. I have to be honest.”
This did not seem to be meant as criticism. Watch Haaland closely and it makes sense. He took just 30 touches of the ball in the Round of 16 against Brazil, a 2-1 Norway victory that instantly became the country’s most iconic moment in the sport. Before scoring his first of two goals, rising to meet Andreas Schjelderup’s cross, he looked almost disengaged before spotting the exact moment to make his run and transforming into a tank rolling across the penalty box.
He has scored 162 goals in 198 appearances across four seasons at Manchester City; the 27 he had in the Premier League last season equaled out to an average of one goal every 110 minutes. During Norway’s World Cup qualifying campaign, during which it was undefeated, he scored every 44 minutes, 16 times in eight games.
During the World Cup, he’s done so seven times, and going into Saturday, he’s one behind Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé in the Golden Boot race.
“Erling is Erling,” England’s Nico O’Reilly, Haaland’s Manchester City teammate, told reporters earlier this week. “We all know what he is like. He can score goals and is dangerous in the box. He is a real threat. They need to get him the ball.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com
