Norway — 2026 World Cup Squad

Twenty-eight years. That is how long Norwegian fans have waited between World Cups, ever since France '98, and for a footballing nation that kept producing talent without ever quite assembling it at the right moment, the drought became almost a national in-joke. This time the punchline lands differently. When your team is built around Erling Haaland, the most ruthless centre-forward alive, qualification stops feeling like a relief and starts feeling overdue.

Group I, then, holds little dread. The framework is simple and it works: win the second balls, push the ball forward, and let Haaland do the rest while Martin Ødegaard's Arsenal-schooled vision picks the lock. What lifts this generation above a one-man act is everything around the pair. Alexander Sorloth gives the attack a heavier, more direct option learned at Atletico; Antonio Nusa carries the ball with menace off the Leipzig flank; Fredrik Aursnes supplies Benfica's quiet positional sense in midfield. Behind them, Julian Ryerson brings Dortmund hardness to the back line.

The pieces finally fit. Whether that translates into a deep run or merely a long-awaited cameo, Norway arrive carrying a generation's expectation on famously broad shoulders.