The Norwegian national team has received a significant boost ahead of the 2026 World Cup. FK Bod\u00f8\/Glimt goalkeeper Nikita Haikin recently became a Norwegian citizen and is now expected to earn a place in the World Cup squad.<\/p>\n
Born in Israel thirty years ago to Russian parents, Haikin moved back to Russia at the age of two and went on to represent several Russian youth teams.<\/p>\n
He never made the senior squad, earning a single call-up in 2015 before remaining on the bench for both games.<\/p>\n
Since joining Bod\u00f8\/Glimt in 2019, he has established himself as a mainstay between the posts, helping the club to domestic titles and European progression, including this season\u2019s Champions League last-16 run.<\/p>\n
Despite his performances for the Norwegian underdogs, a call-up for Russia has been a distant prospect in recent years, entirely due to his outspoken support for Ukraine and his stance against Russian President Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n
Because he has never earned a senior cap for Russia, his switch to Norwegian international status is expected to be rubber-stamped by FIFA.<\/p>\n
His imminent eligibility for Norway is therefore a major boost for the national team. \u00d8rjan Nyland remains the undisputed No. 1, but the Sevilla shot-stopper has spent the entire LaLiga campaign on the bench, creating a selection headache.<\/p>\n
Egil Selvik (Watford) and Viljar Myhra (Odense BK) remain on the radar of Norway boss St\u00e5le Solbakken, yet Nyland\u2019s limited game time has not pushed either keeper into the starting lineup conversation.<\/p>\n
Solbakken has already told the Norwegian media that Haikin is \u201can option\u201d for the World Cup squad. Saturday, however, was not Haikin\u2019s day: in the crunch match against national champions Viking FK, he was beaten five times as his side slumped to a 5\u20130 defeat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Norwegian national team has received a significant boost ahead of the 2026 World Cup. FK Bod\u00f8\/Glimt goalkeeper…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,185196,8446,105],"class_list":["post-388703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-n-haikin","tag-norway","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}