GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA – JUNE 02: Erling Haaland #9 of Norway arrives at Piedmont Triad International Airport ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026 on June 02, 2026 in Greensboro, North Carolina. (Photo by David Jensen/Getty Images)
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Who doesn’t now love the almost-giant, Baby-Huey-goofball, new-Viking-dad striker and World Cup almost-top-goal-meister Erling Haaland! Everybody loves that hulking slab of Viking-land nuttiness. Sometimes it’s what he does, sometimes it’s what he doesn’t do, but either way, whatever he gets up to off the field is almost always ham-handed. Yes, he’s tall, blond, and rock-jawed, but, the helmets with the horns sticking out the sides work the boyish comedy big-time. It’s Huckleberry Finn writ in a Norse shape. One look and you know: There will be mischief.
Does his significant other and babymama Isabel Haugseng Johansen constantly have to remind him to toss the underwear and socks in the laundry hamper as opposed to on the floor? We have no clue and don’t really need or want an answer to that, but it sure seems like this Haaland could well be dropping that stuff wherever it gets tossed. We could imagine a custom basketball hoop over a bin in a corner that gets missed seventy-five percent of the time because he’s going for an imaginary three with that ball of dirty workout socks, like, from the other room.
Whatever, it’s never about the laundry. It’s about scoring. Bottom line: On the global footie stage, that kinetic unruliness (and the ability to score on the pitch when it matters) translates directly into big fan love. Why did the rowing thing catch fire back during Norway’s U.S. sojourn? First, because it was a deeply fetching bit of cartoon-historical foolishness, and not least, because whenever anybody needed a boost, Haaland was front-and-center, going at the “Row” whole-hog. It is a seriously marketable fact that his comedy-rich weeks stateside statistically boosted his renown deep into sections of the non-football-obsessed populace.
Haaland gained 32.1 million Instagram followers over Norway’s tournament sojourn, driving his country Norway into first place as the country with the most explosive internet-recognition over the course of the tourney.
Speaking of the economy, and the extraordinary sums that trade hands within the realm of sports, it’s important to note here that Haaland receives, at last report, $575,593.75 weekly from the Manchester City team administration for his footie services, which is to say, as pictured top, the (estimated) $64,000 Hermes “Road Goes On Forever” Haut au Courriers (HAC) bag he’s got in his right hand next to his rollerboard wouldn’t really put much of a dent in the paycheck.
TOPSHOT – Norway’s striker Erling Braut Haaland carries a taxidermy raccoon as he gets off the plane after Norway’s national football team landed at Oslo’s Gardermoen Airport on July 13, 2026. Norway were knocked out in the quarter-final match against England. (Photo by Jan Langhaug / NTB / AFP via Getty Images) / Norway OUT
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Pictured above exiting the plane at Oslo’s Gadermoen Airport on July 13, the gooney-man carries a stellar, super-nerdy North American souvenir home in the form of a good ol’ stuffed raccoon occupying himself with a vial of what could be faux-milk while toting a very different gator-leather-trimmed canvas HAC with a steel rod poking out the top – perhaps the pedestal mount for his stuffed friend, or, alternatively, the free-weight rod for a quick sorta Pilates planking-session thing-workout on the flight.
Historically, of course, founder Edouard Hermes was a beloved Parisian saddlemaker and his invention in 1890s of the Haut a C
TOKYO, JAPAN – JUNE 19: David Beckham is seen upon arrival at Haneda airport on June 19, 2018 in Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by Jun Sato/GC Images)
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MADRID, SPAIN – SEPTEMBER 17: Kylian Mbappe of Real Madrid arrives at the stadium prior to the UEFA Champions League 2024/25 League Phase MD1 match between Real Madrid CF and VfB Stuttgart at Estadio Santiago Bernabeu on September 17, 2024 in Madrid, Spain. (Photo by Gonzalo Arroyo – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)
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World Cup 2026 of the three major countries of North and Central America provided an excellent feast of fine cliffhanger contests but arguably more lasting will be the effects of the showcase for dozens of international athletes who gained viral, or nearly so, toeholds in the three largest American markets. Not the least of them was Norway’s very own high-scoring rowing man.
Pictured top, Haaland, disembarks in North Carolina in early June. Yes, that is a giant “Road Goes On Forever” Hermès Haut à Courroies (literally, “Top With Straps”) bag in bone he’s lugging alongside his rollerboard.
Along the way, we’ve also experienced a rollercoaster of hiccoughs, bumbles, highly dubious achievements, political grandstanding and downright weird stuff. Leaving the extraordinary social and political fallout from various wins and losses aside, no spectator, player, trainer, team exec or FIFA manager on the planet has figured out the size of the crater that the impact of Video Assistant Referee recalled goals had on the tournament, and in a larger extent on the game. All we know is that we rely on it as the ultimate authority, but it can, on occasion, be disastrously wrong. Like a cluster of thunderheads from which the funnel forms to touch down down in what we call Tornado Alley, that debate will be attaining its full storm potential shortly.
Meanwhile, down in the engine room of the tourney, underneath all of the fiery athletic competition and the occasionally nutty rhetoric that every World Cup seems to inspire, the classic soccer migration of highly athletic Paladin journeymen wove its curlicued ways up and around and back across the host nations.
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS – JUNE 10: Ousmane Dembélé #7 of France arrives at Boston Logan International Airport on June 10, 2026 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Jaiden Tripi/Getty Images)
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As the players schlepped game-to-game through the seemingly unending knockout levels around the three host countries, they carried their necessaries. Reduced to one ungainly but rock-hard travel concept, to play in a World Cup, a man must have the man-bag.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino (L) shakes hands with Kim Jang San (R), secretary general of North Korean Football Association, upon his arrival at Pyongyang international airport in Pyongyang on October 15, 2019. – Infantino is scheduled to attend the match between North Korea and South Korea during the second round of the 2022 FIFA World Cup Asian Zone qualifiers at Kim Il Sung Stadium on October 15 and will visit the Pyongyang International Football School. (Photo by Kim Won-Jin / AFP) (Photo by KIM WON-JIN/AFP via Getty Images)
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Some of the man-bags have been Which man-bag remains the question. Pictured above, the Viking lands’ very own village-born Erling Haaland, now
Quite often, among Pictured above in the early going arriving at their training base in North Carolina, Haaland and his band of Vikings are down, but not out.
GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA – JUNE 02: Erling Haaland #9 of Norway, second from left, arrives at Piedmont Triad International Airport ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026 on June 02, 2026 in Greensboro, North Carolina. (Photo by David Jensen/Getty Images)
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France’s forward #10 Kylian Mbappe (R) arrives at Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts on June 10 2026, ahead of the FIFA 2026 World Cup football tournament. (Photo by Franck FIFE / AFP via Getty Images)
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WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA – JUNE 01: Harry Kane of England arrives at Belgrove Hotel West Palm Beach ahead of international friendlies and FIFA World Cup 2026 on June 01, 2026 in West Palm Beach, Florida. (Photo by Leonardo Fernandez – The FA/The FA via Getty Images)
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France’s goalkeeper #23 Robin Risser arrives at Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts on June 10 2026, ahead of the FIFA 2026 World Cup football tournament. (Photo by Franck FIFE / AFP via Getty Images)
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BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS – JUNE 10: Ousmane Dembélé #7 of France arrives at Boston Logan International Airport on June 10, 2026 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Jaiden Tripi/Getty Images)
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CHATTANOOGA, TENNESSEE – JUNE 05: Midfielder Mikel Merino of Team Spain arrives ahead of the World Cup at Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport on June 05, 2026 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. (Photo by Coral Scoles-Coburn/Getty Images)
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KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI – MAY 31: Members of Argentina men’s national team arrive for the FIFA World Cup 2026 at Kansas City International Airport on May 31, 2026 in Kansas City, Missouri. (Photo by Jay Biggerstaff/Getty Images)
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World Cup 2026 of the three major countries of North and Central America provided an excellent feast of fine cliffhanger contests but arguably more lasting will be the effects of the showcase for dozens of international athletes who gained viral, or nearly so, toeholds in the three largest American markets. Not the least of them was Norway’s very own high-scoring rowing man.
Meanwhile in New York, a slightly different, malicious storm kicked off brightly: Some Knicks fans celebrated their NBA championship in the streets of New York with acts of staggering criminal idiocy, namely, by torching five World Cup transport buses. No reason, except: mayhem. In early July, US federal prosecutors and the FBI announced that they were investigating the Argentine Football Association (AFA) for the potential misuse of some $300 million in suspect transactions. On the random-yet-not-so-random ethnic slur front, the former Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy opined in a (published!) World Cup article that France “has no French players” – which xenophobic joust only echoed the more crude racism of sitting Paraguayan senator Celeste Amarillo’s social media post after France beat Paraguay singling out star French striker Kylian Mbappe as “…a colonised Cameroonian.” And that was arguably the mildest ad hominem in her post. Mbappe unleashed a stinging post back.