Norway striker Erling Haaland believes England are one of the favourites to win the World Cup outright, and with a smile called on the media to put as much pressure on them as possible leading into their quarter-final meeting on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Norway had not competed at a World Cup since 1998, but have reached the final eight for the first time after finishing second in Group I before beating Ivory Coast and Brazil in the knockout stage.<\/p>\n
England have reached at least the quarter-finals in the past three men’s World Cups, but have not made the final since winning the competition in 1966.<\/p>\n
“I think there’s some clear favourites out there, England’s one of them,” said Manchester City striker Haaland. <\/p>\n
Speaking to journalists he added: “I think all of you should put every single pressure on the English lads.”<\/p>\n
Haaland, 25, has scored in each of his past 14 competitive games for Norway, and will look to continue that run against the nation of his birth – he was born in Leeds while his father was playing for Leeds United – when they meet in Miami on Saturday (22:00 BST).<\/p>\n
When Haaland appeared on the cover of Time magazine last year, he said Norway had a 0.5% chance of winning the World Cup.<\/p>\n
But seven goals in four appearances for Haaland – including a double to eliminate Brazil in the last 16 – have helped fire Norway to the last eight.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t expect it. To be honest, to be in the quarter-finals with Norway in the World Cup is quite surprising even for me,” he added.<\/p>\n
“Playing against Brazil was kind of crazy for us Norwegians and to win against Brazil and then go and play England in the quarter-finals in the World Cup in the USA is quite special.<\/p>\n
“I think if you watch the scenes back in Norway, this is not normal for Norway to be, so it’s super special.”<\/p>\n
Haaland’s popularity in the US has surged during the tournament, partly because of his personality and off-field exploits, as well as his goals.<\/p>\n
Just hours after scoring the winner in the last 32 against Ivory Coast, Haaland went shopping in Dallas for cowboy hats and boots.<\/p>\n
He filmed the trip for his YouTube channel, and the video gained over six million views in five days.<\/p>\n
“It’s a good thing because I like the Americans, I think they are kind of hilarious as well. They are funny, so I like the way they are,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s just good. Honestly on every single thing with the World Cup so far here it has been amazing. From the games to the stadiums, everything has been amazing.<\/p>\n
“The training ground where we train has been amazing, so I’m super happy and it’s been impressive.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Norway striker Erling Haaland believes England are one of the favourites to win the World Cup outright, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":682892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-682891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=682891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/682892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}