Quite predictably, Erling Haaland was Norway’s hero as his late goal secured a 2-1 win over Ivory Coast to send the Scandinavians through to the last 16 of the 2026 World Cup on Tuesday, setting up a showdown with Brazil. The Manchester City striker had been peripheral for long stretches but popped up to bobble home the winner with just four minutes left on the clock in Dallas, after Manchester United’s Amad Diallo had hauled Les Elephants level.<\/p>\n
The African nation generated the better openings in the first half, albeit none were clear-cut chances, but a moment of magic saw the Norwegians snatch the lead shortly before the break. Martin Odegaard found Antonio Nusa on the left of the box, and the wide man jinked inside and bent an unstoppable strike into the far side-netting.<\/p>\n
That seemed to spark Norway into life as they immediately spurned two golden opportunities to double their advantage. Haaland’s weak close-range volley was well blocked, and from the resulting corner the Manchester City hitman couldn’t get on the end of Alexander Sorloth’s header, which bounced just wide.<\/p>\n
Ivory Coast substitute Amad took centre stage in the second half, blocking a goal-bound shot on the line at one end before combining wonderfully with Nicolas Pepe at the other to equalise. The Man Utd winger darted into the box, skipped around a defender and fired home from close in.<\/p>\n
But Norway \u2014 and Haaland \u2014 would not be denied, as they found a winner with four minutes left on the clock. Patrick Berg latched onto Oscar Bobb’s fine pass and squared to the striker, and the ball seemed to bounce off him and roll into the back of the net. Amad almost sent the game to extra time at the death, but his sublime free-kick in the sixth minute of added time was palmed away by Orjan Nyland.<\/p>\n
GOAL<\/strong> rates Norway’s players from Dallas:<\/p>\n Orjan Nyland (7\/10):<\/strong><\/p>\n Didn’t have much to do initially but saved well from Pepe shortly after the break and dominated his area. Huge save in stoppage time.<\/p>\n Marcus Pedersen (5\/10):<\/strong><\/p>\n Took every opportunity to bomb forward, but looked fearful of Yan Diomande going the other way.<\/p>\n Kristoffer Ajer (7\/10):<\/strong><\/p>\n The Brentford man relished the physical battle against Ange-Yoan Bonny and was very solid.<\/p>\n Torbjorn Heggem (6\/10):<\/strong><\/p>\n Made an important early intervention in his own six-yard box. Denied by a goal-line block.<\/p>\n David Moller Wolfe (5\/10):<\/strong><\/p>\n Got forward but given a tough time by the tricky Pepe. Lucky to escape punishment for clattering Diomande, and could have done more to stop Amad’s run.<\/p>\n Sander Berge (5\/10):<\/strong><\/p>\n Saw plenty of the ball but was too risk-averse when he had it at his feet. Didn’t do enough to deny Amad.<\/p>\n Patrick Berg (7\/10):<\/strong><\/p>\n Covered plenty of ground an did well in his duels. Perfect third-man run and knew where Haaland was to assist the winner.<\/p>\n Martin Odegaard (6\/10):<\/strong><\/p>\n Struggled to pick the lock before notching his third assist in as many appearances for Nusa’s strike. Often too ponderous on the ball.<\/p>\n Alexander Sorloth (5\/10):<\/strong><\/p>\n Peripheral as a winger but did begin to create a bit of havoc when he drifted inside with his aerial ability.<\/p>\n Erling Haaland (7\/10):<\/strong><\/p>\n Typical Haaland performance. Saw a couple of half-chances pass him by and had drifted out of the game before bouncing the winner into the back of the net.<\/p>\n Antonio Nusa (7\/10):<\/strong><\/p>\n Had struggled to get on the ball but popped up with a moment of individual magic to give his country the lead. Some nice moments on the ball, too.<\/p>\n Andreas Schjelderup (6\/10):<\/strong><\/p>\n Wasted some decent positions.<\/p>\n Oscar Bobb (7\/10):<\/strong><\/p>\n Wonderful pass in the build-up to the winner.<\/p>\n Fredrik Aursnes (N\/A):<\/strong><\/p>\n On to fill in at right-back late on.<\/p>\n Stale Solbakken (7\/10):<\/strong><\/p>\n Will be thrilled that his substitutes made a telling difference, as his side make more history in North America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY Quite predictably, Erling Haaland was Norway’s hero as his late goal secured a 2-1 win over Ivory Coast to send the Scandinavians through to the last 16 of the 2026 World Cup on Tuesday, setting up a showdown with Brazil. The Manchester City striker had been peripheral for long stretches but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}