{"id":525362,"date":"2026-07-14T09:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T09:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/525362\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T09:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T09:44:11","slug":"fifa-world-cup-norway-fans-perform-one-last-viking-row-as-erling-haaland-returns-with-stuffed-raccoon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/525362\/","title":{"rendered":"Fifa World Cup: Norway fans perform one last \u2018Viking row\u2019 as Erling Haaland returns with stuffed raccoon"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 25-year-old had paid a visit to Wild Bill\u2019s Western Store in Dallas, Texas where he bought the taxidermied animal for US$750 ($1295) and asked his followers whether he should name it Cowboy, Ranger, Tex or ROW (Raccoon on wheels).<\/p>\n

Beyond tournament souvenirs, fans flooded Norway\u2019s capital of Oslo to welcome the team back from their first World Cup since 1998.<\/p>\n

Supporters made their way to the palace square while the squad met King Harald.<\/p>\n

The players later greeted fans with the Royal Guard at attention behind them, then joined together for one last \u201cViking row\u201d \u2013 which had Crown Prince Haakon on the drums.<\/p>\n

Haaland and teammate Sander Berge were absent from the latter parts of the celebrations, but both needed to catch another flight, according to coach Stale Solbakken.<\/p>\n

Captain Martin \u00d8degaard thanked fans for the support they had shown during the competition and promised Norway would be back at the World Cup in 2030.<\/p>\n

Norway finished second in group I behind semi-finalists France, beating Ivory Coast and Brazil on their way to the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n

England, who beat Norway<\/a>, will play Argentina in their semi-final on Thursday (NZT).<\/p>\n

Go all in to unlock every Fifa World Cup 2026 match with a TVNZ+ Event Pass<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 25-year-old had paid a visit to Wild Bill\u2019s Western Store in Dallas, Texas where he bought the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[806,1863,1558,10542,65828,9517,36862,5213,12632,71,99456,65829,305,24176,685,3556,111,139,5895,152912,69,5270,24265,92272,12971,6443,29689,213,95461,7187,2742,16559,12574,1849,6123,102,377],"class_list":["post-525362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-as","tag-back","tag-been","tag-cup","tag-erling","tag-fans","tag-fifa","tag-football","tag-friend","tag-from","tag-furry","tag-haaland","tag-have","tag-hundreds","tag-last","tag-national","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-norway","tag-norways","tag-nz","tag-one","tag-perform","tag-raccoon","tag-returned","tag-returns","tag-row","tag-sports","tag-stuffed","tag-team","tag-thousands","tag-tournament","tag-viking","tag-welcomed","tag-while","tag-with","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}