Norway
Norway are back at a World Cup for the first time since France 1998 — a 28-year wait, ended — and they arrived with arguably the most fearsome attack of any nation here: a front line of Antonio Nusa, Martin Ødegaard, Erling Braut Haaland, Alexander Sørloth and Oscar Bobb that one analyst flatly reckoned no other national team can match. They opened with a 4–1 win over Iraq, Haaland scoring twice.
A nation in fever
The homecoming has gripped Norway. TV 2's broadcast of the Iraq opener peaked at 1,476,000 viewers with a 97% audience share — the channel calling it football fever and a national togetherness 'never experienced before' (only the 1994 match against Mexico, 2.1m, has ever drawn more). For a country of 5.5 million, that is most of the nation watching at once.
'A World Cup of urine tests'
Norway are based in Greensboro, North Carolina, training in 30–32°C heat under a UV index of 10, and the camp's defining storyline is hydration. Coach Ståle Solbakken's instant-classic line: «Nå er det VM i pisseprøver» — 'Now it's a World Cup of urine tests.' Players are weighed before and after every session to calculate fluid loss, give daily urine samples, and take recovery gels before sleep, with Norway's Olympic Center (Olympiatoppen) guiding the heat plan. There has even been a debate about deliberately under-watering their own training pitch to mimic the dry, slow stadium surfaces.
Solbakken's riddle
Norway's tournament history is a paradox — imperious in qualifying, oddly passive at finals (1994, 1998, Euro 2000). Solbakken puts part of that old collapse down to mentality, and believes this side, able to keep the ball and attack rather than chase, can finally break the pattern. After the opener he handed the players two days off — 'they can train if they want, but if they want to play golf, they can' — and several scattered, some to New York, while Morten Thorsby and Torbjørn Heggem stayed back to golf.
The captain question
Captain Martin Ødegaard is the worry: an injury-plagued Arsenal spring meant he played just 6 of Norway's previous 17 matches, and he was quiet against Iraq (though he still completed 41 of 42 passes and laid on an assist). His team-mates roast his injury record mercilessly — Sander Berge: 'I don't know what Martin's up to. His 77th injury this year.' Solbakken is unmoved: 'He will start. I can promise you that.'
Haaland chasing history
Erling Braut Haaland's double against Iraq drew him level with Kjetil Rekdal's Norwegian World Cup goal record of six. 'I have to tell him I'm coming for that record,' Haaland grinned. See his page for the full story — the routines, the roots and the obsession.
Off the pitch
The build-up wasn't all sweat: a pre-departure Viking-costume photoshoot and a dinner by celebrity chef Eyvind Hellstrøm prompted Sørloth to wonder aloud whether the squad had 'gone a bit too far' before a ball had even been kicked. Solbakken called a halt to the festivities the moment they landed in the USA.
Norway are through to the World Cup Round of 32 — their first knockout stage since 1998 — and the world has stopped calling it a fluke. Erling Haaland’s second-half double in a 3-2 win over Senegal made it back-to-back World Cup victories for the first time in Norwegian history and took him to four goals at the tournament (59 in 52 caps). The global narrative now frames Norway as a genuine dark horse carried by the most ruthless finisher at the tournament, with the looming France showdown billed as a referendum on Haaland vs Mbappé.