I'm not going to pretend to be a huge soccer follower.
As a person of largely Norwegian descent, I do make a show of following Norwegian sports; it's usually more the winter variety - skiing, Nordic Biathlon, those sorts of things. Quick semi-autobiographical note - when I was in Norway a few years ago I found that a distant cousin of mine is basically the Michael Jordan of women's cross-country skiing, which is not that unusual when one has relatives in a nation that small. In case it comes up at a trivia contest, you're covered.
Soccer is to Norway what tennis is to Scotland, or bobsledding is to Morocco - it's not really a world power. Norway has qualified for the World Cup four times ever - 1938, 1994, 28 years ago in 1998, and of course this year.
But as a proud fairweather fan (who's got time for losers?) and a homer, I'm pretty psyched to watch Norway advance to the knockout stage for the first time in history. They are led by one of the most Norwegian athletes I can imagine - Erling Håland:
Erling Haaland, Norway’s large, maniacal striker, has several exceedingly Norwegian traits. He sometimes exercises by chopping wood in the forest. He consumes 6,000 calories a day. After training sessions, he drinks raw milk. He owns a tax-sheltered investment company in Luxembourg named Pillage. He bought an edition of the “Heimskringla,” a 13th-century Old Norse saga, for $130,000—then donated it to his local library because, he explained, “I’ve never been much of a reader.” He has flowing blond hair, often compared to a Viking’s. He brings the intensity of a raiding party to the sport. Haaland scores goals at a higher rate than almost any soccer player ever. He has said, “I think of football all the time.” His wake-up alarm plays the theme song for the Champions League. He once posted a photo of himself on a plane, staring ahead intensely, with the caption “Just raw dogged a 7 hour flight no phone no sleep no water no food only map.” The Guardian once called him a “ravenous Nordic goal-yeti.”
Haaland’s style of play elicits not wonder but terror. He is enormous: six feet five, 200 pounds, about the size and speed of the N.F.L. wide receiver Randy Moss. “Watching him, I sometimes find myself giggling as I might over a big, obscene crash at a demolition derby,”
Now, that - and the particular zeal of Norway's fans - might be a great angle to follow in covering Norway's Cinderella season:
Norway's Viking row is officially my favorite sports tradition.
— Aaron Torres (@Aaron_Torres) June 30, 2026
Sorry, we will not be taking any further applicants at this moment 😏😏pic.twitter.com/9gNJnVfTWL
If you are not, in fact, a ghoul, anyway.
But no. In the Spectator, the focus is
Of course - provided one is not a crotchety killjoy.
Handily, Gavin Mortimer at the Spectator pleads guilty up front:
You would have to be a crotchety killjoy to complain about the Viking Row. It’s just a bit of humorous high jinks. Humorous but also a little hypocritical.
Because when you go back 800 years, it turns out Vikings were known for looting, pillaging and...taking slaves:
That’s not all they did. Vikings also raped, pillaged, murdered and enslaved. From the eighth to the 11th century the Vikings terrorized Europe, from the British Isles in the north as far as Sicily in the south.
The Dublinia Museum in the heart of the Irish capital explains that “slaves were a valuable commodity in the Viking age… Vikings took Irishmen and Irishwomen as slaves.”
It's true. The Vikings took and kept slaves.
Know who else did?
Literally every nation on earth through antiquity, into and through the Middle Ages, and in many cases well into the industrial age. The Egyptians enslaved the Israelites. The Greek and Roman economies ran on slaves.
Including every single tribe, culture, society, and nation the Vikings raided. The UK didn't finally abolish slavery throughout the empire until 1934. France didn't do it once and for all until 1848. Since Mortimer brought them up, Spain didn't abolish slavery in the last of its colonies until 1886. Russia abolished serfdom in 1861.
Liberal icon Denmark? It didn't abolish slavery throughout its colonies until 1848.
The Kingdom of Norway? Sometime in the 1200s. A few hundred years after the Vikings settled down, and half a millennium and change before most of the rest of the world.
Look at me, defending the World Cup. I guess it can bring people together.
