Heeeere's Haaland! Norway's terminator Erling out to make up for lost time on World Cup debut

Haaland may be tall, blonde and blue-eyed, but he's not your typical Norwegian - at least not from a personality perspective. He wouldn't be anywhere near as modest as the majority of his compatriots.

Haaland may be an admirably hard-worker who champions the importance of 'staying humble', but he's well aware of how good he is - and pretty much always has been.

One of his primary objectives growing up was to become better than his footballing father, Alfie, who also played for Manchester City in his youth, and he's long since achieved that aim. However, Haaland never hid the fact that his main goal was always helping Norway qualify for the World Cup.

"It's put a lot of pressure on me," he admitted to GQ Magazine last year, "but I like the pressure. And I would put a lot of pressure on Erling Haaland if I wasn't Erling Haaland myself!"

Haaland definitely has a point. He's a phenomenal centre-forward with a sensational strike-rate who was always going to raise expectations.

While it had been previously possible to downplay his remarkable goal-scoring exploits in Austria and Germany, the way in which he has smashed one record after another since arriving in England in 2022 has removed any doubt over his status as a generational talent and a physical freak of nature. Haaland is basically Gerd Muller in Zlatan Ibrahimovic's frame, making him as difficult to stop as The Terminator.

He's just picked up his third Premier League Golden Boot - only Mohamed Salah and Thierry Henry have more - while he already ranks ninth on the Champions League's all-time leading scorers' list, with 57 goals in just 58 appearances, meaning there's actually a chance that he could overhaul Cristiano Ronaldo at the summit of the standings.

Rather remarkably, he could also break the Portuguese forward's record at international level.

As Haaland prepares to play in his first World Cup, he's already up to 55 goals for Norway - and in just 49 games, which is frankly preposterous. What's even more ludicrous, though, is that 28 of those goals have come in his last 20 outings.

It's perfectly fair to say, then, that Norway never would have made it to North America without their big No.9. Haaland scored in every single one of his country's 2026 qualifiers, and at least twice in half of them, to end with 16 goals in just eight games. Nobody managed more in Europe. Or indeed any other confederation. Not even those featuring more rounds and more matches.

In that context, it won't come as much of a surprise to learn that Norway's game plan revolves around getting the ball to Haaland as much as possible.

"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," coach Stale Solbakken recently admitted.

However, it's not as if Haaland does nothing other than wait for the ball to arrive at his feet. His defensive output increased under Pep Guardiola at City, while his all-round game came on leaps and bounds last season - as underlined by the impressive fact that only three Premier League players managed to better his haul of eight assists.

"I think he is hungry for goals, but I think he's a very smart player and he has improved a lot on his back-to-goal play," fellow forward Romelu Lukaku told Stats Perform. "So, credit to him because a lot of people were talking about that [side of his game].

"He's a better player than he was a few years ago, when he was already great, and he will only get better. I also think now the World Cup is the biggest stage for him to show all of his qualities."

Just qualifying unquestionably represents an outstanding achievement for Norway. Haaland has never even seen his country play at a World Cup and, as a kid, he used to root for other teams at the finals, including England.

The draw hasn't been kind either, with Norway placed in the closest thing one can possibly get to a 'group of death' at a 48-team tournament alongside France, Senegal and Iraq.

However, Solbakken's side are unsurprisingly being touted as 'dark horses' because of the way in which they've managed to surround their star with a strong supporting cast headlined by Odegaard, but also featuring Alexander Sorloth, Jorgen Strand Larsen, Antonio Nusa, Sandar Berge and Oscar Bobb.

Haaland's health remains of the utmost importance - Norway's bid to qualify for Qatar 2022 collapsed as soon as the striker was sidelined by injury - but Solbakken is right when he says they have more "players with some X-factor now".

"We feel we can always score a goal," the 58-year-old said. "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."

Haaland has obviously been key to Norway's impressive form over the past two years - and not just because of his goals. When Odegaard was ruled out of the final three games of qualifying, Haaland was named stand-in skipper and he revelled in the role, leading his country to three emphatic victories, culminating in the historic 4-1 rout of Italy at San Siro.

Solbakken wasn't the least bit surprised by the armband bringing even more out of Haaland: "Erling is very down-to-earth and 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."

But he's not just thinking about his team-mates. Haaland is just as preoccupied with inspiring the next generation of Norwegian footballers sitting at home in front of the TV.

"I want to develop the whole federation," he told GQ, "and everything around it for Norway to become a big football nation."

It's an ambitious goal for a country of just over 5.5 million people, and will bring with it even more pressure, but again, Haaland really is okay with that.

"I've been feeling the pressure ever since I came to the national team in 2019," the striker said before his two-goal salvo at San Siro. "And, honestly, I felt it more then than now, because I wasn't that good at handling the pressure.

"Now, I'm better. Now, I think I'm an expert." And now, much more importantly than anything else, he's provided himself with the perfect platform to prove it.