Norway against England in a World Cup quarter-final is the kind of sentence that would have sounded like a mad lib just a few weeks ago, and yet here we are, living in the most wonderful parallel universe. Norway have never, in their entire footballing history, reached the last eight of the World Cup. Never. This is a country whose previous World Cup memories mostly consisted of politely showing up and then heading home early. But Stale Solbakken's side have ripped up that script and danced on the remains. They finished second in their group behind France, which honestly seemed like a perfectly respectable achievement at the time, and then they started pulling off heists in the knockout stage that would make Ocean's Eleven jealous. Erling Haaland scored a late winner against Cote d'Ivoire in the Round of 32, which was dramatic enough, but then he went and bagged a brace against Brazil. Brazil! Five-time champions Brazil! And Norway beat them! If you wrote this as fiction, your editor would send it back for being too unrealistic.
Haaland now has seven goals in four games and is joint-top of the Golden Boot race alongside Mbappe and Messi, which is frankly absurd for a guy at his first World Cup. He is operating like a cyborg programmed purely for putting footballs into nets, and England have the unenviable task of figuring out how to stop him in Miami. The Three Lions topped their group ahead of Croatia, Ghana, and Panama, which sounds straightforward enough, but their knockout path has been anything but comfortable. Congo DR had them 1-0 down before Harry Kane remembered he is Harry Kane and scored two late goals to rescue the situation. Then against co-hosts Mexico, Jude Bellingham scored twice but England had to survive most of the second half with ten men in a chaotic 3-2 thriller. Thomas Tuchel probably aged five years during that match alone.
This will be England's eleventh quarter-final, while Norway are in completely uncharted waters. The club connections are everywhere: Haaland faces Manchester City teammates Nico O'Reilly and Marc Guehi, plus former City man John Stones. Martin Odegaard goes up against Arsenal pals Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka. Nine of Norway's squad play in the Premier League. It is basically a very expensive reunion with extremely high stakes. Whoever wins heads to Atlanta for a semi-final against one of Argentina, Egypt, Colombia, or Switzerland. No pressure, lads.
