From Channing Tatum donning a peroxide blonde wig to the internet going wild over doppelgängers, Erling Haaland fever has struck football fans (and casual Instagram scrollers) across the world. But what is it like to be compared to the Norwegian Viking? And why, even after Norway lost, can't we get enough of this gentle giant? We track the lookalikes, asking one what it is actually like to be one of the many Haaland mimics
There is a photograph, taken at Oslo's Gardermoen Airport a few days ago, that tells you everything you need to know about the summer we've just had. Erling Haaland is coming down the steps of the team plane, Norway freshly – if honourably – knocked out at the quarter-final stage, and in one hand he is holding a Dolce & Gabbana tote. In the other, a taxidermied raccoon clutching an empty bottle of gin.
But are we really surprised? Of course the gentle giant has a raccoon. Of course there is currently a poll running on his Instagram story to name it. Cowboy, Ranger, TEX and R.O.W. (short for “Raccoon On Wheels”) are all in contention, at time of writing. This is the new World Cup world order. One where the world's most expensive number nine can go feral in a Texan taxidermy shop and no one bats an eye.
Photo: Getty
After all, somewhere between the group stage and the quarter-final, Haaland has become a cultural phenomenon that spans beyond a football footnote. Just look at Channing Tatum who turned up to Norway's game against France in a slicked-back blond wig and a Norway shirt, having already filmed a Nike advert in which Haaland called him "handsome man". AI-generated anime fictionalising the fixtures, many featuring Haaland as the star, flooded TikTok. His hilarious Snapchats endlessly screenshotted and reshared (our favourite sees him answer the question ‘are you a boy or a girl?’ with ‘my dad is a boy and my mum is a girl so I am mixed xx’). Fellow country man Kygo even remixed a rap song, Kygo Jo, Haaland posted with his Norway youth teammates Erik Botheim and Erik Tobias Sandberg in 2016 under the name Flow Kingz.
Then there are the many look-alikes, among them Russian model, Anastasia Kostromitina, and American content creator Emma Willman. The latter even judged a Haaland look-alike contest ahead of the quarter-final against England in Miami, where two dozen strangers turned up wearing improvised jerseys and increasingly confident blond ponytails. A Norwegian holidaymaker won and walked away with match tickets.