Erling Haaland didn’t just score goals — he detonated them. The Manchester City powerhouse has dragged Norway back onto football’s biggest stage, smashing his way to a first major tournament next summer with a qualifying run that felt less like form and more like a phenomenon.
From the first whistle of the campaign, it was clear something unstoppable was building.
Sixteen goals in eight qualifiers- a goal in every match- made Haaland the single hottest scorer across the entire 2026 qualification landscape, continent for continent. His brace in a seismic 4-1 victory in Italy last Sunday didn’t just seal the result; it sealed Norway’s ticket to North America and confirmed what fans had been whispering all year: this is Haaland at his apex.
“I’m happy, but more relieved,” he told TV2 after the game, the relief of a nation reflected in a terse grin. Pressure followed him everywhere this campaign, and he answered it with the sort of ruthless efficiency that turns headlines into folklore.
A record for the ages Haaland’s Norway record reads like fantasy football: 55 goals in 48 caps. That haul makes him the sixth player ever — and the first in 53 years — to reach 50 international goals in fewer than 50 appearances. He has already eclipsed Jørgen Juve’s 90-year-old Norwegian scoring benchmark, rewriting his nation’s record books in a matter of months.
In qualifying, he not only outscored every European rival by a wide margin, he outscored every player in every confederation, despite others playing far more matches. Add two assists and a streak of more than a year without failing to score for Norway, and the simple truth becomes harder to ignore: this is one of the most prolific scoring seasons any elite striker has ever produced.
It’s not a solo act. Still, Norway’s surge isn’t a one-man magic trick. Captain Martin Ødegaard has been the perfect foil — the playmaker who turns Haaland’s runs into goals. Ødegaard’s seven assists in European qualifying made him the top creator on the continent, and his clinic in vision and control has turned service into silverware opportunities. Together, Haaland’s finishing and Ødegaard’s craft form a partnership arguably unmatched in world football right now.
Norwegian journalist Lars Sivertsen framed it bluntly: for a country of five million, to boast what he calls the best striker and one of the Premier League’s premier playmakers in the same generation is “something I am cherishing.”
He suggested these two could, in time, be widely regarded as Norway’s greatest-ever pairing.
