History-maker Erling Haaland ready to spark 'biggest party ever' as ice cold Man City star looks to fire Norway to first World Cup in 28 years - and get one over his dad

Haaland has a very close relationship with his former footballer father, Alfie, but also a healthy rivalry with him. "He never pushed me to anything, but he early knew that I wanted to become good at football," Haaland told Time magazine. "I said a long time ago 'Hopefully I'll become better than you'. I told him many times. That's been something that has been a motivation for me ever since I was young, to live from football and become better than him."

It is fair to say that Erling has already had a far more impressive career than Alfie, who won zero major honours in his 20-year stint in professional football. Erling, by contrast, has won nine trophies, including the Champions League and Premier League, two Golden Boots and been named Player of the Season in both England and Germany. But Alfie can boast of one thing his son is yet to achieve: he has played in a World Cup.

Alfie was part of the Norway side that qualified for the 1994 World Cup in the U.S., and so there is an added significance to Erling's bid to reach next summer's tournament and become the second member of his family to not only play in the world's most prestigious competition, but to do so in the same country as his father.

Norway last reached the World Cup in 1998 (Alfie didn't make the squad), and while in the U.S. they agonisingly missed out on the knockout stage by one goal after all four teams in their group finished on four points, Norway had an epic journey in France, reaching the last 16 by beating none other than world champions Brazil. 

Granted, Brazil had already qualified as Group A winners, but they still fielded an all-star side including Cafu, Roberto Carlos, Rivaldo and the best player in the world at the time, Ronaldo. Norway went behind in the 79th minute but staged an incredible turnaround in the space of five minutes to snatch a 2-1 win thanks to goals from Tore Andre Flo and an 89th-minute penalty from Kjetil Rekdal. 

Norway were beaten 1-0 by Italy in the last 16, but no one alive then will forget the achievement of beating Brazil and making it to the knockout stage. Haaland is not looking that far ahead, but he knows that just making it to the finals will be a historic achievement. "If we would qualify for the World Cup, it would be like another big nation winning it," he told Time. "It would be the biggest party ever. Scenes in Oslo would be incredible."

Norway had something approaching the biggest party ever when they beat Italy 3-0 in June. Rain had hammered down relentlessly throughout the game, but fans remained inside the Ullevaal Stadion long after full-time, serenading their players while wearing their ponchos.

"People didn't want to go home," said coach Stale Solbakken. "The rain was pouring, but they were there long before the game and long after the game."

Solbakken was part of the squad at the 1998 World Cup, giving the current crop of players, the vast majority of whom were not born then, a link with the past, although it is one that Solbakken wants to break: "We are sick and tired of talking about that now, so we need to get to another tournament. It’s 25 years since we've been in a major tournament, so it's about time."

Solbakken's experience at the World Cup is not even his most significant achievement. While training with FC Copenhagen in 2000, the 57-time Norway international collapsed from a heart attack as his heart stopped beating for almost seven minutes and he went into a coma for 30 hours. "He was clinically dead," said the club doctor who revived him. "It is a miracle that he is still alive."

Solbakken was forced to retire at the age of 30, entering coaching in 2002. He won eight league titles with Copenhagen in two spells before becoming Norway coach in 2020. He is blessed with an incredible generation of players headlined by Haaland and Martin Odegaard (who is out injured at the moment), and backed-up by Haaland's City team-mate Oscar Bobb, Atletico Madrid striker Alexander Sorloth, RB Leipzig winger Antonio Nusa, Fulham midfielder Sander Berge and Borussia Dortmund full-back Julian Ryerson.

"Offensively, we have players with some X-factor now. We feel we can always score a goal," Solbakken added. "As a team, we have become much more solid defensively as well. We have a better mix. The feeling (in the squad) has always been good, but there’s an extra edge to it now that we have done so well."

No one has quite the X-factor of Haaland, and yet Solbakken insists the striker is "easy to coach". "He is very down-to-earth in terms that he wants to do his work defensively as well," he added. "He thinks about the team before he thinks about himself. You can see that when other players score, he's as happy as he is when he scores himself. He's aware he's a leader and he's taking care of his team-mates in a very good way. The other players know that Erling is our biggest match-winner and that we have to make sure that we put him in the right areas so he can score goals and be dangerous."

Haaland's commitment to the team's cause was on display during the hammering of Moldova in September. According to a source close to the player, Haaland was acutely aware of the importance of goal difference in Norway's bid to qualify before the game, stressing the need to score as many times as they could to gain an advantage on Italy. Haaland backed up his words on the field, scoring five times himself and grabbing the ball after each goal to restart the game as quickly as possible so he had time to net again and again.

They sure did that and it gave them a massive lead in goal difference on the Azzurri. But rather than rest on their laurels in their next game, Norway showed that same relentlessness against Israel. Haaland had an early setback of having a penalty saved and also seeing his re-take repelled, but he shrugged it off to score another hat-trick while also forcing an own goal. 

Italy have not shown the same hunger, only beating Israel 3-0 in their last game after winning 3-1 in Estonia. Facing Moldova on Thursday does give them an opportunity to improve their goal difference, but by the time they kick-off, Norway could well have added a few more to their own tally, leaving Italy with a nigh-on impossible task.

The goal difference is so big and Norway are so widely expected to beat Estonia that Solbakken said on Tuesday that people keep telling him they have already made arrangements for the World Cup. The Norwegian Central Statistical Office, meanwhile, has calculated that Norway have a 99.9 percent chance of qualifying as long as they beat Estonia, even by just one goal.

Haaland is fully aware of the significance of the next two games for Norway and how he can take his nation to just their fourth World Cup as their main goal-scorer: "The last World Cup was in 1998, two years before I was born, so I've been saying this for a long time: my goal is to take Norway to a World Cup and Euros. This is the main goal in my career and now I have a good chance to do it, so it's about taking the chances."

A historic moment for his nation, as well as for his family, is so close Haaland can almost touch it.