Manchester City superstar striker Erling Haaland is one of the world’s most intriguing soccer players to watch. This is why there has been a ton of excitement about his home country of Norway qualifying for the 2026 World Cup.
And Haaland has gotten off to a fast start, scoring two goals in his team’s opening group-stage match against Iraq, which was at Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts.
Haaland will need to keep up this current form if Norway is going to advance past the group stages and match up against some of the world’s top teams. While Norway doesn’t match up to these teams in terms of overall talent, there’s no doubt that Haaland is a threat to score at any point.
Haaland didn’t come to the United States alone. He brought his longtime girlfriend, Isabel Haugseng Johansen, whom he has known since they were children in Norway.
Haaland and Johansen had a child together in December 2024, but it doesn’t appear the child came to the United States with them.
One cool aspect of the World Cup having games in the United States is that players and their families get an opportunity to explore the country when they’re not practicing or playing.
Haaland and Johansen are taking advantage of this, which was shown with an Instagram post Johansen made earlier in the week of her and Haaland exploring New York. The post showed several photos and videos of them and was captioned, “🇺🇸” showing they’re fans of the country.
Norway’s June 22 game against Senegal is at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, which will give Haaland and Johansen more time to explore the East Coast.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
