The World Cup Match That Never Happened

On June 26, in Boston, at Gillette Stadium, Erling Haaland sat on the bench for the entire 90 minutes. The scoreboard finally stopped at 4-1, a big win for France. But if you had read any media previews before the match, you probably thought the night belonged to two people—Mbappé and Haaland. FIFA’s official preview paired them together, calling it a "game within a game." Sky Sports directly labeled it a "new Messi-Ronaldo clash." Both had four goals in the Golden Boot race, tied for second, just one behind Messi’s five.

The global headline was the same word: Battle of Fate.

Then Norway’s coach, Ståle Solbakken, announced the starting lineup. Ten players were completely changed.

Only one player remained in the starting eleven: Genoa defender Leo Østigård. Haaland was on the bench, Ødegaard was on the bench, and the entire core starting lineup sat on the sidelines. Before the match, everyone assumed both would start and face off on the pitch. Solbakken didn’t think so.

This showdown, which the world had waited a week for, died forty minutes before kickoff.

Forty-eight hours earlier, the star-making machine was still running at full capacity. FIFA featured Mbappé and Haaland in the same pre-match special, and analysts in Sky Sports’ studio described this group-stage game as "the first top-tier clash of this World Cup." Their stats were indeed impressive—Mbappé had 60 goals in 100 international matches, and Haaland had 59 goals in 52 matches. With an average of 1.13 to 0.60, the more efficient player was sitting on the bench in Boston. Before the match, no one thought this was a problem, because everyone assumed they would both play.

Solbakken’s calculations were sharper than the media’s. Norway had already advanced from the group stage—winning would secure the top spot, but losing would still send them to the knockout rounds. The top spot gives more points for pride, but Haaland’s legs are more valuable than pride—the knockout stages are where Norway truly has to gamble everything. In the post-match press conference, when pressed about the rotation decision, his exact words were: "For me, for the physios and medical team, and for some players themselves, it was a no-brainer."

A no-brainer. A match packaged as a century-defining showdown became a simple arithmetic problem in the eyes of the Norwegian coaching staff.

Haaland himself didn’t take it seriously either. In a pre-match interview with Fox Sports, his exact words were: "Honestly, I don’t really care about this game against France. We’ve already advanced, and that's the most important thing." Reuters’ notes also recorded him adding: "They’ll probably beat us and then go on to win the whole tournament."

The top star admitted it himself, so the coach had no reason to hold back.

France operated on a completely different logic. Didier Deschamps flew back to France due to his mother’s death, leaving assistant coach Stéphane to manage on the spot. But France only rotated four players; Mbappé continued to start, and the strongest front-line lineup was largely preserved. Stéphane said bluntly after the match: "The players are very close to Didier, and they wanted to do something special."

On one side, a Norway meticulously planning for the knockout stages; on the other, a France playing with personal emotion. Before the match even kicked off, the scales were already tipped.

Thirty-two minutes later, the scales were smashed to pieces.

Dembélé opened the scoring in the 7th minute, the second goal came in the 20th minute, and a hat-trick in the 32nd minute. Thirty-two minutes—the second-fastest hat-trick in World Cup history, with the fastest belonging to Austria’s Erich Probst in 1954 with 24 minutes. More importantly, this was the first time in World Cup history, since Russia's Oleg Salenko scored a first-half hat-trick against Cameroon in 1994, that someone scored three goals before halftime. A gap of exactly 32 years.

Before the match, all cameras were focused on Mbappé and Haaland. The player dominating the game was someone no one talked about.

Mbappé ran for 90 minutes with limited impact. He provided two assists—one of which set up Dembélé for his third goal to complete the hat-trick—but didn’t score himself. Norway equalized in the 21st minute through Aassgaard, making this Rangers midfielder the first Rangers player to score at a World Cup since Brian Laudrup. A footnote so obscure that you’d need to dig through history books to grasp it.

In the second half, Norway briefly saw a glimmer of hope to close the gap. Around the 50th minute, they earned a penalty, Stran Larsen stepped up, but it was saved by France goalkeeper Maignan. 3-1 didn’t become 3-2, and the match was completely settled. In injury time, in the 90+4th minute, substitute Doué sealed the score at 4-1.

France finished the group stage with three matches, scoring 10 goals and conceding 2, winning all to lock in the top spot. Norway scored 8 goals and conceded 7, finishing second in the group with 6 points. The pre-match narrative of a "Golden Boot ranking battle" was scrambled after Dembélé’s single hat-trick.

After the match, Mbappé and Haaland embraced on the sidelines. Their mutual friend, Cherki—a French player now with Manchester City—was one of the few connections between them. Limited interaction, mutual respect—that’s how multiple media outlets described this relationship.

Norway returned to the World Cup after a 28-year absence, their last appearance being the 1998 summer in France. Haaland, with 59 goals in 52 matches, is Norway’s all-time top scorer and the highest goals-per-game ratio in the 50-goal international club. He was supposed to be Norway’s biggest football story at this World Cup.

But the Boston image he’ll be most remembered for is probably that bench scene.

After the match, a reporter asked him how he viewed this 4-1 loss.

"We weren’t going to win anyway."