Англи улс Дэлхийн аваргын шөвгийн наймд Эрлинг Холандын эсрэг хүч үзнэ

After overcoming an impressive DR Congo, and then producing a remarkable performance to beat Mexico at Estadio Azteca with 10 men, one of football’s ultimate tactical tests awaits England in the World Cup quarter-finals: can they stop Erling Haaland?

The Manchester City striker has scored in each of his past 14 competitive international appearances for Norway and has seven goals at this tournament. Only Argentina’s Lionel Messi is ahead of him in the Golden Boot race.

Haaland netted twice in the round of 16 elimination of Brazil, including his fourth winning goal of the finals.

Head coach Stale Solbakken, in charge since December 2020, has crafted this team and their 4-3-3 shape around Haaland.

He has picked athletic full-backs to maximise crossing scenarios, and they are deliberately lop-sided. Either Antonio Nusa or Andreas Schjelderup play off the left as a dribbly winger, while 6ft 5in (196cm) Alexander Sorloth is a target man on the opposite side. For almost any other nation, Sorloth would be the starting striker in the Haaland mould.

“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,” Solbakken told FIFA.com last September, midway through qualifying.

Here is the five-point tactical plan to lock down Haaland and how England can beat Norway in Miami on Saturday.

Shut down the supply

There is quality throughout this Norway team. The number of players they have in Europe’s top five domestic leagues has been steadily rising in recent years since a nadir in the 2010s. Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard is chief creator at No 8, often dropping deep to get on the ball. Full-backs Julian Ryerson and David Moller Wolfe, who play for Borussia Dortmund and Wolverhampton Wanderers respectively, bring pace and runs in-behind.

The wings are where Norway do their best work.

Wolfe assisted the opener for Haaland against Iraq in their opening match of the group stage, providing a low cross after getting on the overlap. Even more frequent are his underlaps, which tend to be a decoy to take a defender away and prevent a double team on the left winger — either Nusa or Schjelderup.

That pattern played out for what proved Haaland’s winner against Brazil, attracting centre-back Marquinhos out of the centre of the box. Moller Wolfe created space for Schjelderup’s cross, and luring Marquinhos wider left Haaland one-v-one against his old chum Gabriel of Arsenal.

Norway have three goals from six back-post chances in this tournament.

This means that England’s right-side pairing needs to be defensively diligent on Saturday. Opting for Bukayo Saka as the right-winger would be sensible, given his experience of playing full-back, to track Moller Wolfe’s underlaps or help double-team him.

Then it’s a coin flip between Djed Spence and Ezri Konsa for right-back. Spence would provide pace and one-v-one defending, while Konsa is better aerially and having an extra centre-back on the pitch against crosses might be equally valuable.

Just over two-thirds of Norway’s shots this tournament are first-time efforts, with only the Czech Republic (73.5 per cent) higher than that. Seventeen of Haaland’s 18 goal attempts have been one-touch — he’s prolific and, even in the matches when he sees little of the ball, his finishing is ruthless.

Across the past two seasons, he has scored with his first shot in 16 matches.

Defend him aggressively

Haaland can be stopped. It happens rarely at club level: only five times for Manchester City, in all competitions since he joined in 2022, has he played at least an hour in a game and not recorded a shot. Twice this year though, in friendly draws with Switzerland and Morocco, he has drawn blanks in a Norway shirt.

Those two opponents defended him in different ways.

Morocco allowed crossing situations and focused on overloads against Haaland and Sorloth, keeping both centre-backs close to goal and having the far-side full-back tuck in — leaving the opposition winger free — for extra security.

They also tasked 6ft 5in (196cm) Issa Diop with man-marking Haaland in the box.

Only five of Norway’s 24 crosses that day were met by a team-mate, a very moderate success rate, and their No 9 only had four touches in 72 minutes of action before being substituted.

Switzerland made a rare switch to a back three when they travelled to Oslo in March.

This facilitated touch-tight marking by the centre-backs, with former City team-mate Manuel Akanji tasked with stepping out to Haaland, and 6ft 2in (188cm) Nico Elvedi a physical match for Sorloth.

The Swiss shackled Norway, admittedly on a pitch that cut up and made attacking much harder — Solbakken’s side only managed nine crosses and failed to score in a game for the first time since September 2024.

An underrated part of Haaland’s game, Professor Geir Jordet explains, is his vision. “He’s acutely aware of his surroundings and this helps produce excellent positioning in and around the box,” he says.

Sports sciences and football psychology expert Jordet has measured Haaland’s scanning (when he looks away from the ball) and it is well above the average of other Premier League strikers — four to five times in the final 10 seconds before receiving a pass, compared to 2.5-3 times by others.

England head coach Thomas Tuchel will want goalkeeper Jordan Pickford to be as ambitious at leaving his line to punch away crosses in Miami as he was in the win over Mexico in the previous round. Pickford got out to five crosses that night, the most he has ever recorded in a match. It ensured that Raul Jimenez, a similar striker to Haaland in terms of boasting such aerial quality, was not given any golden back-post chances.

Press smarter and better

Norway are a complicated team to press. They can build short, with Odegaard dropping deeper to create an overload, while centre-back Kristoffer Ajer loves to step out with the ball.

Goalkeeper Orjan Nyland regularly kicks long, too — but aiming for ‘winger’ Sorloth, rather than Haaland.

They bait the press and then go over it, hoping to exploit an aerial advantage against the opposition left-back, with the midfielders then squeezing up to try to win the second ball.

England are already better prepared than most for this sort of stuff: left-back Nico O’Reilly has won eight of 10 aerial duels this tournament and at 6ft 4in (193cm) is dominant in both boxes.

Tuchel’s side need to improve their cohesion in the press, though.

The distances between the forwards and midfield were too big in the early stages against Mexico and for most of the previous match with DR Congo.

Mexico pushed up both No 8s to pin England’s midfield, then used their goalkeeper to create a four (or five) on three, opening up vertical passes.

The root of England’s issues against DR Congo was keeping both centre-backs up on halfway. They had an extra man at the back and were one light in the press, surprised by their opponents playing a 4-2-3-1 that day rather than a 5-3-2.

DR Congo worked the ball from side to side to drag England around, which made routes out via either centre-back. Defensive midfielder Samuel Moutoussamy became the release valve behind the English forward line.

If England are to smother Norway, they need to be bold and go man-to-man.

This means committing a centre-back upfield and leaving Haaland one-v-one on halfway, but the press won’t work at the top end otherwise.

Use your bench

Should England go ahead, this could be another match for a second-half switch to a back five and Dan Burn coming on at centre-back. Haaland is physically and mentally exhausting to defend against for 90 minutes. He’s scored twice from 10 first-half shots and five times from eight efforts in second halves, which shows how decisive he can be late on.

Tuchel has used substitutes well through the first five games of this tournament. Marcus Rashford and Anthony Gordon have made or scored goals from the bench, O’Reilly almost headed in the winner against Ghana, and the introductions of Burn, Spence and John Stones at the Azteca paid dividends. Those three made a combined 16 clearances to help withstand all that Mexican pressure.

6 – Despite only coming on in the 75th minute, Dan Burn made the joint most clearances in England’s 3-2 win over Mexico (6).

It’s the most clearances made by a player subbed on that late into a World Cup game on record since 1966.

Butter. pic.twitter.com/5AzoGFX3mL

— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) July 6, 2026

Capitalise on Norway’s frailties

England have scored more than once in every match at this World Cup, other than the 0-0 draw in game two against Ghana. With the firepower of Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham, they should outscore Haaland and Norway on Saturday, particularly given the defensive frailties Solbakken’s team have.

Brazil repeatedly cut them open on counter-attacks, including a one-v-one on the hour mark when Nyland saved from Endrick. “We knew how dangerous they were on the counter-attack, so we had to keep the ball, have long attacks and play and play until they tired,” Solbakken told reporters post-match.

They managed that. Just about. “It could have gone either way,” Solbakken added. “But we played a solid, tactical game. We had a few turnovers that could have cost us.” Norway gave up five big chances against Brazil — their opponents at this tournament, collectively, have registered 15 of those, second-most after the teams playing Egypt (16), while England are the best side in this World Cup at generating big chances.

Norway are yet to keep a clean sheet across their five matches and conceded two penalties in the previous round.

They like to press out of a 4-4-2 and can be vulnerable to direct balls, despite their height and physicality. Similarly, for a team so good on counter-attacks, they give up plenty heading the other way.

In a sense, England’s task against Norway is the same as at this stage of the previous World Cup four years ago, when they took on France and Kylian Mbappe.

They managed to shut him down, as Mbappe had one shot and one key pass all game, but lost 2-1 because of a long-distance strike by Aurelien Tchouameni, a brilliant cross by Antoine Griezmann for Olivier Giroud and Kane missing a late penalty.

The consensus is that England are wiser, stronger, more threatening and better all-round now than at Qatar 2022.

They need to be the immovable object to Haaland’s unstoppable force.

It will be the difference between making another major tournament semi-final and packing for home.