Erling Haaland finally has the missing piece of his career. Norway beat Italy 4-1 in Milan in November to secure a place at the 2026 World Cup, and the forward said qualification ended a pressure that had followed him since he began playing for his country.
For Haaland, the result matters now because it turns the next World Cup into his first major international tournament. He scored two goals in two minutes in the final qualifying fixture at the San Siro and finished UEFA qualifying with 16 goals, eight more than anyone else, helping Norway end a 28-year absence from the tournament.
That achievement carries weight because Haaland has already won two Premier League titles and the Champions League, yet he said his career still felt incomplete without a World Cup in sight. He said he had felt the lack of it in Qatar in 2022 and again around Euro 2024, adding that he had never experienced Norway at a World Cup in his lifetime.
Norway's rise was built around a squad that also includes Martin Ødegaard and Alexander Sørloth, with Stale Solbakken's group giving Haaland enough support to turn qualifying into a sustained run rather than a single surge. Before flying to their training base in Greensboro, North Carolina, the squad even gathered for its send-off photograph, a brief snapshot of a team heading to a stage it had not reached since 1998.
Haaland said the pressure to get there had been building since his international debut in 2019, and that the qualification now gives young Norwegian fans a chance to see their country at a World Cup for the first time. The next test is bigger than the celebration: Norway will arrive in 2026 with a scorer in top form and a nation that has waited nearly three decades to see what that can become.
