Haaland Brace Beats Senegal, Sends Norway Into World Cup Last 32
A second straight Haaland double carried Norway past Senegal and into the knockouts with a match to spare. Senegal's fightback came two minutes too late.
Erling Haaland scored twice as Norway beat Senegal 3-2 at New York New Jersey Stadium on Monday, booking a place in the World Cup last 32 with a game to spare in their first appearance at the tournament since 1998.
It was Haaland’s second straight brace, lifting him to four goals in two matches and an international tally of 59 in 52 games — numbers that look less like a hot streak and more like a player deciding a tournament. Norway have now won back-to-back World Cup matches for the first time in their history, and they did it on a day when the competition’s biggest names all delivered: Lionel Messi’s double earlier carried him to a record 18 World Cup goals, and Kylian Mbappé added a brace of his own as France beat Iraq 3-0.
The scoreline flatters Senegal, who undid themselves. Marcus Holmgren Pedersen put Norway ahead late in the first half when his low drive crept under goalkeeper Edouard Mendy, and Haaland doubled the lead shortly after the break. Ismaila Sarr pulled one back, only for Haaland to punish more slack defending and restore the two-goal cushion. Sarr’s second, deep in stoppage time, made the closing minutes uncomfortable but arrived too late to matter.
Mendy had kept Senegal in it for long stretches, denying captain Martin Ødegaard twice and tipping a Kristoffer Ajer header onto the frame, per Al Jazeera. The goalkeeping kept the result respectable; the defending in front of him is what sent Senegal to the brink. Nicolas Jackson looked their likeliest outlet going forward, but Norway’s early loss of full-back Julian Ryerson to injury never became the problem it might have.
What makes Norway dangerous is not just the man up front. They have lost only once in their last 18 matches, and the win sets up a genuinely heavyweight finale: a meeting with France in Boston on Friday, with top spot in Group I on the line and both sides already through, per ESPN. A team that has spent a generation watching tournaments from home, built around the most prolific striker in the world right now, will fancy that stage rather than fear it.
The pattern of the win mattered as much as the result. Norway scored twice from open play after Senegal errors and once more from Haaland’s sharpness in the box, then defended deep rather than chasing a fourth — the profile of a side that trusts its finishing and is content to manage the rest. Against France on Friday that approach will be examined far more severely than it was here.
For Senegal, the maths is now unforgiving. They must beat Iraq — also without a point — in their final group game and hope the results elsewhere fall their way. A side that arrived among the dark horses of the draw is suddenly playing to stay in a tournament it expected to grace, undone less by a lack of quality than by two goals it handed an opponent who needs no such invitations.
