Эрлинг Холанд: Дэлхийн аваргад оролцсон нь миний амьдралын хамгийн сайхан аялал байлаа

An hour had passed when Erling Haaland emerged from the Norway dressing room, his hair in a bun, flip flops on his feet, looking a little weary as he was led out of Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium and into a marquee for his final post-match inquisition of the World Cup.

These are the moments when we see the game’s idols at their most vulnerable. The memory endures of seeing Lionel Messi trudging through a post-match mixed zone looking haunted after Argentina were knocked out of the 2010 World Cup and of Cristiano Ronaldo fighting back the tears after various disappointments with Portugal. In Atlanta last week, Mohamed Salah and his Egypt team-mates walked out of the stadium in shocked silence.

And Haaland? Pretty soon, he was smiling and joking and describing the previous month as the greatest adventure of his life. Norway’s 2-1 defeat by England in the World Cup quarter-final hurt — as did the dead leg that cut short his involvement in extra time — but even by this stage on Sunday evening, his overriding emotion was pride.

He was asked about the game and various talking points before someone asked him how it felt to be Erling Haaland right now, after scoring seven goals in Norway’s first World Cup this century, after sinking Brazil in the previous round, after a tournament that has seen him, in terms of global profile, make the jump from one of the biggest stars in European football to one of the most famous faces on the planet.

“Quite nice, I would say so,” he said with a smile. “I’m quite happy with my life. I’m enjoying it. I’m in a good place. And… I mean, it’s kind of difficult to take in the kind of…. show or rollercoaster that we have been in now for the last six weeks. There has been so much pressure, so much feeling. It has been… unreal, honestly.

“It has been the best weeks and the best journey I’ve had in my entire life. It’s hard to take it in right now; you get a little empty. If I try to think quickly through these 40 days, it has been absolutely insane, the coolest thing I’ve ever been a part of. And I think all Norwegians also really appreciate it. I hope it has brought people together. We should be proud… but at the same time, learn from this.”

Haaland said that he felt the World Cup experience “changes Norway… and it changes me”. He didn’t elaborate on how it had changed him — he was in and out of the post-match mixed zone in about seven minutes — but he looked utterly enchanted by the whole experience.

So many players go into a World Cup wide-eyed, full of hopes and dreams, and leave it a few weeks later feeling utterly crushed. That can be particularly so when a world-class player is portrayed as carrying the expectations of a nation on his shoulders alone.

This World Cup has been different. So many of the game’s biggest stars have thrived.Haaland has loved it: two goals in Norway’s opening game against Iraq; another two in a 3-2 victory over Senegal; a late winner to overcome Ivory Coast in the round of 32; and best of all, two late goals to defeat Brazil last Sunday to secure his nation’s first World Cup quarter-final appearance. And beyond that, just the whole experience: doing the tourist thing in New York with his partner Isabel Haugseng Johansen on a day off; checking out Times Square and Katz’s Deli; enjoying white-knuckle rides at an amusement park in Texas; goofing around in a cowboy hat in downtown Dallas — not to mention his role in that Viking-inspired “rowing” ritual as Norway’s players and fans have celebrated together.

So much about modern football seems so terribly serious. The Premier League can be like that, a multi-billion-pound entertainment product played under largely grey skies in what can at times feel like a mood of austerity, but the World Cup — this World Cup, and particularly Haaland’s World Cup — has looked like… well, a show or a rollercoaster ride, like he said. The stakes have been high, the pressure palpable, but he and his Norway team-mates have approached it without fear, without inhibition, with smiles on their faces.

Did that ultimately count against them? Did they, with their choreographed celebrations and their happy-to-be-here demeanour, lack the intensity to fight for another big scalp after beating Brazil? You could imagine a certain kind of grizzled ex-player — perhaps Roy Keane, who has a certain history with the Haaland family — making that argument in a television studio.

But that wouldn’t tally with the performance we saw from Norway in Miami. For 90 minutes against England, they were the better team. Kristoffer Ajer and Torbjorn Heggem, in central defence, smothered Harry Kane. Sander Berge, Patrick Berg and Martin Odegaard had the upper hand in midfield. Andreas Schjelderup opened the scoring with a spectacular cross-shot that deceived Jordan Pickford and, although Jude Bellingham struck back for England in first-half stoppage time, Norway looked the more likely winners as the second period wore on.

The one thing Norway couldn’t do was fashion a clear opportunity for Haaland. For the most part, England cut off the supply line. There were a couple of crosses he directed goalwards, causing England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford to stretch, but they were not even half-chances really. England central defenders John Stones and Marc Guehi, both of whom he knows well from Manchester City, succeeded where their Brazilian counterparts failed. His most notable involvement in the second half was a foul on Elliot Anderson that led to a Heggem goal being disallowed after a VAR review.

There was one chance that got away. At 1-0 up just before half-time, Martin Odegaard released Alexander Sorloth down the inside-right channel, with Haaland charging through the middle unmarked, ready to pounce as soon as his team-mate rolled it across.

But Stones played the situation cleverly, denying Sorloth the angle he wanted for the pass. With Declan Rice racing back to cover, Sorloth took too long and was crowded out, leaving Haaland to gesture and point to where the ball should have been played.

Haaland struggles to contain his frustration (Mauro Pimentel/AFP via Getty Images)

In truth, a goal might not have counted anyway, since Haaland barged into Guehi earlier in the counter-attack. But buoyed by that let-off — and helped, it seemed, by the ball apparently hitting a camera wire above the pitch — England equalised minutes later through Haaland’s former Borussia Dortmund team-mate Bellingham.

This World Cup has been all about the matchwinners: big players stepping up at big moments, “hero moments,” as Harry Kane put it after his decisive contribution in England’s victory over DR Congo. In Miami, it was Bellingham’s time to shine once more, first with a superbly taken equaliser in first-half stoppage and then by following up to score a rebound — Haaland-esque — in the opening minutes of extra time.

By half-time in extra time, Haaland’s race was run. He limped to the bench, appearing to nurse his thigh. “It was not a tough decision to take Erling out,” Norway coach Stale Solbakken said. “He was finished. Maybe I should have taken him out 10 minutes before. He used all his energy and power, game after game. He also got a dead leg in the second half, so that plus fatigue. But he did everything he could. He scored seven goals in five games for us. He had a fantastic World Cup.”

That was pretty much Haaland’s view, too. “The performances are one thing,” he said. “Beating Brazil is one thing. But I think the way we have put Norway on the map is maybe the thing that touches me the most. I think with the ‘rowing’, with how good people we are — I think perfect people — and, yeah, with Norway on the map, hopefully now we can establish something when it comes to European Championships, World Cups and everything because our generation is amazing.”

He spoke about how certain refereeing decisions could have gone in Norway’s favour — and how normally these decisions go the way of the bigger and better teams (“like, when I’m in Manchester City, it normally goes my way,” he joked). And at this point, he seemed to get the feeling he had entered stream-of-consciousness mode and was struggling to stop himself.

“In the end, I’m just proud,” he said. “I’ve been so proud every single day since we qualified, since being in the U.S., and… yeah. I don’t really know what more to say because I think I’ve spoken so much out here in the U.S. and I’m getting a bit fed up. So it’s now time to go on holiday.”

And to get some rest before he returns to the business of terrorising defences in the Premier League and Champions League next season. If the summer of a lifetime has changed his outlook on football and his outlook on life, one thing is likely to be unchanged: his hunger for goals.