{"id":752537,"date":"2026-07-09T12:34:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T12:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/752537\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T12:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T12:34:10","slug":"erling-haaland-is-having-the-most-fun-at-the-world-cup-theres-a-reason-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/752537\/","title":{"rendered":"Erling Haaland is having the most fun at the World Cup. There\u2019s a reason why."},"content":{"rendered":"

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Erling Haaland is having the time of his life in the World Cup. The Norway national team striker scored two goals to send soccer royalty Brazil home. After the game, he\u2019s chuckling to himself, telling reporters that even he\u2019s surprised he won<\/a> that game. Haaland has spent most of this World Cup looking like two completely different people. On the field, he is still the \u201cStriking Viking,\u201d a terrifying 6-foot-4 goal machine who runs at defenders like a marauding berserker. Off the pitch, he\u2019s posting selfies with Shrek<\/a>, trying on a Southern accent<\/a>, and generally behaving less like one of the most accomplished athletes on Earth<\/a> than a very tall guy having the best summer of his life.<\/p>\n

The internet has, predictably, fallen in love. But there may be more going on here than the discovery that Haaland is extremely funny. Norway has become one of the most surprising stories of the World Cup\u2014qualifying for the first time in nearly 30 years, then making it to the semifinals. But to Brad Stulberg, a performance coach and professor at the University of Michigan and the author of the book The Way of Excellence<\/a>, Haaland offers a useful rebuke to the idea that greatness has to hurt. I spoke with Stulberg about what Haaland\u2019s memes tell us about Norwegian athletic success, why Americans are so suspicious of fun in sports, and whether any of this would matter if Norway weren\u2019t winning. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.<\/p>\n

Aymann Ismail: Erling Haaland is having the most fun at the World Cup. He\u2019s being extremely silly, making memes nonstop, posting hilarious selfies to Snapchat. And then he\u2019ll go on to knock out Brazil, scoring 2. What do you think explains that?<\/p>\n

Brad Stulberg: There\u2019s a clip of him in Dallas trying on a cowboy hat and cowboy boots<\/a>, and then with Team Norway, doing the Viking Row<\/a> after games with a huge smile on his face. It\u2019s clear: The dude is having so much fun out there doing something that you\u2019d think an 8- or 9-U soccer team would do.<\/p>\n

Imagine Michael Jordan and the Bulls in the middle of the NBA playoffs\u2014not after winning it all, mind you, just after winning a playoff game\u2014going to half-court and doing a celebration. They\u2019re not doing that. They\u2019re all business. They\u2019re going back to the locker room. The Michael Jordan thing is: You\u2019ve got to suffer for greatness, everything needs to be serious, you always need to be angry.<\/p>\n

There is that meme that\u2019s like, \u201cImagine being chased by Haaland<\/a>,\u201d but at the same time, Haaland is out there being innocent and joyful, putting on the Viking helmet and doing an interview. He\u2019s just having a blast. That combination has been really neat to watch.<\/p>\n

My wife started following him on Snapchat. She was really tickled when he answered a fan asking if he was a boy or a girl with \u201cMy dad is a boy and my mom is a girl. I am a mix. Xoxo\u00a0\ud83d\udc8b\u201d I recently saw a random hairstyling how-to video<\/a> with someone who uncannily looked like Haaland, and he went into the comments like, \u201cHi,\u201d and the video gets seen 22\u00a0million times<\/a>. What comes to mind when you see stuff like that?<\/p>\n

Norway dominates the Winter Olympics, and it\u2019s remarkable, because it\u2019s such a small country compared to a place like America. Everybody always says, \u201cWell, it\u2019s the Winter Olympics, and it\u2019s always winter in Norway\u201d or \u201cNobody cares about those sports.\u201d But they also have one of the world\u2019s best triathletes, Kristian Blummenfelt. Their men\u2019s beach volleyball program is a perennial favorite to win. They have some of the best Tour de France riders. And now they\u2019ve put together this incredible soccer program. It all flies in the face of those typical retorts.<\/p>\n

There are a couple of things going on. The first is undeniable: Norway is an extremely rich country, and it invests heavily in sports and its talent-development pipeline. What\u2019s interesting, though, is that its youth sports programs don\u2019t take the shape of this crazy Americanized system where it gets professionalized really early. We have rankings, A teams and travel teams, and kids specialize when they\u2019re 7 years old. Norway\u2019s sporting culture is entirely different. They don\u2019t post scores or standings for young kids. They give participation trophies. And it\u2019s such a joke that people think that turns you into a snowflake, because they\u2019re world-beaters. The whole philosophy is \u201cJoy of Sport<\/a>.\u201d That\u2019s the actual phrase. In the U.S., if an 8-year-old\u2019s coach sees that you\u2019ve got a good pitch or a good jump shot, they\u2019re like: \u201cYou should be playing this sport year-round.\u201d In Norway, kids play multiple sports before they specialize.<\/p>\n

The other thing is access. In the U.S., a lot of kids get priced out of sports. Norway invests heavily so more kids can play. When you have a country of fewer than 6\u00a0million people, you can\u2019t afford to lose kids because they had a bad experience at age 8. You don\u2019t know if that 8-year-old is going to turn into Erling Haaland at 15, 16, 17. You have to keep the pipeline as robust as possible.<\/p>\n

It makes me wonder how different the experience is for the players on the other side\u2014I\u2019m thinking about Vin\u00edcius J\u00fanior, Raphinha, Hendrick. These guys are under enormous pressure because of what Brazil represents in the sport globally; the expectation is that they ought to waltz into the final. Do you see a difference there?<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s hard to know whether it\u2019s pressure or just a different response to pressure. My sense is that Norway feels a lot of pressure too. Maybe the expectation wasn\u2019t that they were going to win. But once you\u2019re this deep into the tournament and the entire world is watching you, of course you feel pressure.<\/p>\n

Someone who came up in a culture where soccer is life and it\u2019s We need to win or else, the response to pressure can be to go narrow and become even more obsessed. Someone like Haaland grew up in a culture where it\u2019s all about the joy of sport. He feels the pressure, but there\u2019s some version of: Yeah, this is crazy, and I\u2019m out here playing soccer with my mates. I just want to have fun. The ability to have fun is part of that release valve.<\/p>\n

Is that why, after the Brazil win, Haaland told reporters he hadn\u2019t expected to win<\/a>?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s obviously easier to say after you get the win. Who knows what that press conference looks like if the game goes the other way? But I think there are enough data points throughout the tournament to believe that the sentiment behind it is real. Because you think of these elite athletes as sleeping in a freaking hyperbaric oxygen chamber<\/a>, right? And Haaland is out line dancing.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s this misconception, especially on the internet\u2014in the grind-slop, alpha-bro hustle culture, whatever you want to call it; in my book, I call it \u201cpseudo-excellence\u201d\u2014that you have to suffer for greatness. You have to make all these sacrifices. And if you\u2019re having fun, you\u2019re doing it wrong. It\u2019s the David Goggins approach to greatness<\/a>: Be hard. You have to be angry and resentful and have a chip on your shoulder. There\u2019s a time and a place for that. I just think it\u2019s one small tool in the tool kit.<\/p>\n

Haaland is a great example of someone who is clearly a fierce competitor and very intense on the pitch, and he\u2019s having fun at the same time. These things get pitted against each other. It\u2019s like: Either we\u2019re going to hold hands and sing and not care about winning, or we\u2019re going to be so cutthroat that we literally want to kill our opponent. In a lot of the best performers, it\u2019s not either\/or. It\u2019s both\/and. They can be killers on the pitch or the court while, at the same time, having fun. Steph Curry is another great example<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This gets directly to your book. What did you learn about sports when putting it together?<\/p>\n

When the book first came out, people would ask me: Why is there a chapter on joy in a book about excellence? That was confusing to people. I think what Haaland is doing makes it less confusing. The pendulum has swung so hard, especially in this hypermasculine online world, toward being resentful and angry and killing and all that. And it\u2019s just not how performance works. The No.\u00a01 thing people say to me is: \u201cWhat about Michael Jordan? That guy was a killer. He was angry. He literally invented enemies to compete against in his head.\u201d My response is twofold. One, most people aren\u2019t wired like Michael Jordan. And for every Michael Jordan, there\u2019s a Steph Curry. But the more interesting thing is that Jordan didn\u2019t win a championship until Phil Jackson came along, and he won all of his championships under Phil Jackson. And what is Phil Jackson known for? He\u2019s the \u201czen, compassion, joy\u201d coach, right?<\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019m not trying to take away any of Jordan\u2019s greatness. But I do think he might have self-destructed without Jackson as a balancing force. So even when you look at the strongest counterexamples, you still see this undercurrent: Fierce intensity has to be balanced with some lightness and some joy. Otherwise, it just eats itself. It becomes too much. And in my own life, I think I used to undervalue having fun. Now, if I stop having fun for too long, that\u2019s a cue that I need to investigate my approach, because something\u2019s wrong.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean every day is going to be fun. You\u2019re a writer. Writing sucks. It\u2019s hard. It\u2019s not always fun. But the totality of it should be joyful.<\/p>\n

I was thinking about that while reading the Supreme Court\u2019s recent decision involving transgender athletes. There\u2019s a passage in which the majority asks, \u201cWhat is the harm in allowing an additional athlete to compete in women\u2019s or girls\u2019 sports?\u201d Then it says that sentiment \u201cmisunderstands the nature and reality of sports.\u201d The opinion describes sports as highly competitive and generally zero-sum. What do you make of that conception of what sports fundamentally are?<\/p>\n

The idea that a 10U rec soccer league is all about winning and nothing else, and that that\u2019s the spirit of sport\u2014to me, that\u2019s a misunderstanding of the spirit of sport. I\u2019ve got kids, and I\u2019m a volunteer coach in my community. Everything we do is based around having fun, being a good teammate, and building character. That\u2019s the point of youth sports. Nobody cares if you win an 8U trophy. What matters is that you\u2019re being a role model and hoping that these kids develop some good life skills. I think that\u2019s the beauty of sport right now, especially at a time when so much of life is automated and moving online. There aren\u2019t that many venues where you can succeed or fail, and it\u2019s very concrete.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s generally a direct correlation between the effort you put in and what you get out. Sport is such a great container for building self-confidence, for teaching people how to lose, for teaching people how to win. To me, that ought to be the role of sport at all levels. But certainly in youth sports, the point isn\u2019t to win. It\u2019s to develop athletes and develop people.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Clement Gelly
\n I\u2019ve Learned One Magical Thing From Soccer Commentators. You Can Try It, Too.
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<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to change the way I talk to my kids about sports. I think I\u2019ve been responding to how excited they get about points.<\/p>\n

Mine are a little older. Here\u2019s how I do it. I don\u2019t pretend that winning doesn\u2019t matter, because I think that\u2019s dumb. Competitive kids are going to be like: \u201cDad, that\u2019s dumb. Winning matters. Why else do we keep score?\u201d So I say: \u201cWinning matters. Winning is part of the game. We\u2019re trying to win. And you know how you\u2019re going to have the best chance of winning? By having fun. If you\u2019re not having fun, I can almost guarantee that you\u2019re not going to win over the long haul.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then I tell them that there are things we can\u2019t control. We can\u2019t control the points, because we don\u2019t know how the other team is going to play. We don\u2019t know what the weather is going to be like. All we can control are these two things: What\u2019s our effort\u2014are we trying hard? And are we appreciating the moment and having fun? If we do those things, then we\u2019ve already kind of won the internal game. And if you play sports for long enough\u2014which is the goal, because you\u2019re having fun\u2014you\u2019re going to lose a lot and you\u2019re going to win a lot.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Armie Hammer Supposedly Didn\u2019t Know His New Movie Would Be \u201cHateful, Disgusting.\u201d I Don\u2019t See How That\u2019s Possible.
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The Original Movie Changed Documentary Filmmaking. Then the Director of Paul Blart: Mall Cop Wanted to Remake It.
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You can be sad when you lose. You have to enjoy the wins. But that\u2019s why you need to find joy in the game itself. You just keep coming back. My son used to get so upset playing basketball when he was 5. One time I asked him: \u201cTheo, if you scored every time and beat me every time, would it be fun?\u201d And he\u2019s like: \u201cNo, it\u2019d be boring.\u201d And I\u2019m like: \u201cYeah. So you kind of need to lose sometimes. Otherwise it\u2019s not fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

But would we even be talking about Haaland if Norway weren\u2019t winning right now?<\/p>\n

And that gets right back to the both\/and, right? Yes, you need to win, obviously. We wouldn\u2019t be talking about a lot of these teams if they didn\u2019t get out of group play. And is inspiring people the same thing as actually holding up the trophy? Of course not. I think that\u2019s where everything goes to extremes. There\u2019s one extreme where it\u2019s: Let\u2019s all hold hands and sing and everyone\u2019s a winner. It\u2019s like, no, that\u2019s actually not true. But the other extreme, You just have to fucking win and nothing else matters, especially for young kids, is every bit as dumb.<\/p>\n

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