{"id":741941,"date":"2026-06-17T03:50:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T03:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/741941\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T03:50:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T03:50:17","slug":"world-cup-2026-haaland-rises-to-the-occasion-on-world-cup-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/741941\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: Haaland rises to the occasion on World Cup debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

If there is a stage that is too big for Erling Haaland, we’re yet to find it.<\/p>\n

A hat-trick on his Champions League debut for RB Salzburg, a hat-trick on his Bundesliga debut for Dortmund, a double on his Premier League debut for Manchester City, and now two goals on his World Cup finals debut, inspiring Norway to a 4-1 win over Iraq.<\/a><\/p>\n

The 2026 World Cup might be six days in, but it felt as if it really began on Tuesday, with Kylian Mbappe inspiring France to a 3-1 victory over Senegal with two superb goals which made him Les Bleus’ all-time leading scorer.<\/p>\n

Little over an hour later, Haaland strode out for his first World Cup appearance and picked up the gauntlet thrown by Mbappe, nearly 18 months his senior, with a display full of desire, as well as the goals we have come to expect.<\/p>\n

Norway manager Stale Solbakken said afterwards: “You can see he lived up to the occasion – it wasn’t too big for him. <\/p>\n

“I had a good feeling before the game, the last training session was very good. I had a feeling he would do it for us today.”<\/p>\n

Iraq head coach Graham Arnold added: “He’s just an amazing number nine. We dealt with him quite well for a lot of the game [but] at the end of the day he’s a top striker. <\/p>\n

“Norway could shock a lot of people with the team they have. They could go a very long way.”<\/p>\n

Arnold spoke to Haaland after the final whistle and revealed: “I just said to him: ‘You’re one of the best number nines I’ve ever seen.’ He’s so strong, so quick and he’s just lethal.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If there is a stage that is too big for Erling Haaland, we’re yet to find it. A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":741942,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-741941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=741941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/741942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}