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According to Opta's data sheet, Haaland took 10 shots in the first two group stage games, all with one touch finishes, and 7 of them hit the target. But at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Dallas, Ivory Coast trapped him in a suffocating pocket.
On Opta's data sheet, Haaland took 10 shots in the first two group matches, all with one-touch finishes, 7 of which hit the target. But at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Dallas, Côte d'Ivoire sealed him into an oxygen-deprived pocket.
At 1:00 AM Beijing time on July 1, in the Round of 32, the world was waiting for that number 9 to break the deadlock, but he couldn't even find space to take a shot.
The one to break the 88-year knockout stage goal drought was a 21-year-old winger that most domestic fans would need to search for by name. Antonio Nusa, born in 2005, was poached by RB Leipzig from Club Brugge two summers ago for €21 million.
In the 39th minute, Côte d'Ivoire was dragging the game into their familiar meat-grinder rhythm. L'Équipe admitted after the match that the momentum was with Côte d'Ivoire before the goal. Nusa received a pass from Ødegaard on the left, stepped over twice, cut inside, and curled the ball with his right foot towards the far post.
The arc smashed into the top corner. Goalkeeper Yahia Fofana was rooted to the spot; when the ball grazed the post and hit the net, his center of gravity didn't even shift.
Hupu's comment section flooded with "Crescent moon scimitar," and Mundo Deportivo directly dropped it into the candidate pool for the tournament's best goal.
Norwegians had waited 88 years for this goal. The nation's only previous World Cup knockout stage goal dates back to June 5, 1938 — Arne Brustad's 83rd-minute equalizer against Italy at the Stade Vélodrome in Marseille. Italy won 2-1 in extra time. Moving forward, Norway scored just one goal in three group matches in 1994, lost 1-0 to Italy in the Round of 16 in 1998 — Vieri's 18th-minute goal was enough — and then missed six consecutive World Cup qualifiers, not even touching the pitch of the final tournament for 28 years.
When that bullet was fired from the gun in 1938, Nusa's father wasn't even born. 88 years later, it landed squarely on the right foot of this 21-year-old kid.
Côte d'Ivoire wasn't about to accept their fate.
In the 73rd minute of the second half, Manchester United winger Amad Diallo smashed in an equalizer. BBC Sport immediately slapped a "goal of the tournament contender" label on it.
1-1.
The air in the Norwegian dugout froze. That familiar feeling of "history is going to screw us again" crept back up.
This was the first time Côte d'Ivoire had reached this height. 2006, 2010, 2014 — three World Cups all ending in the group stage. This group, led by Pépé, Kessié, and Amad, had dragged the team to the ceiling: Amad's 90th-minute winner against Ecuador in the first round, a 1-0 lead over Germany in the second round cruelly snatched by Undav's 94th-minute goal, and a desperate 2-0 win over Curaçao in the final round thanks to a Pépé brace, just to squeeze into the knockout phase.
Now they had leveled the score. They had dragged Norway into the muddy brawl they excel at.
In the 86th minute, the ball found Haaland.
Against Iraq in the group stage, he had 20 touches and scored 2, needing only 11 touches for his first goal. A brace against Senegal. A rest against France, watching Dembélé score a hat-trick. The Opta analyst's words were: "Erling Haaland doesn't need many touches. It's what makes him elite."
But on this night, Côte d'Ivoire's defensive line stuck to him like a plaster for over 80 minutes, using him as a tactical decoy and a battering ram to wear down.
Until the 86th minute. 2-1.
After battling in the box for nearly the entire match, Haaland got only this one window for a shot. The game was over.
Norway advanced. But the first-half stats tore off the veil of shame: 54% possession, an xG of just 0.03. This number meant that in the first 45 minutes, Norway hadn't even managed a single decent shooting opportunity inside the box.
They held the tournament's most fearsome striker, held the second on the assist chart, Ødegaard. The Arsenal captain delivered his third assist of the tournament in this game, the Premier League's leading playmaker with 7 assists in Euro 2024 qualifying, virtually invisible against Côte d'Ivoire's suffocation.
A win, yes, but it felt like an escape.
Côte d'Ivoire was eliminated. Their best-ever tournament finish stops at the Round of 32. For a team that had never won a World Cup knockout match before, this was already the highest altitude this generation of Pépé and Amad could reach.
Nusa and Côte d'Ivoire's Ousmane Diomandé share a dressing room at RB Leipzig every day. On the night of June 30, one celebrated on the pitch, the other walked off as a substitute.
In an interview with RB Leipzig's official website before the match, Nusa said: "Who doesn't dream of lifting the World Cup?"
The quarter-finals are against Brazil. If Haaland waits another 86 minutes, the Brazilians won't give him stoppage time.