Norway's 28-year World Cup exile ends against Iraq

28 years end Tuesday night

Norway play a World Cup match for the first time since 1998. Iraq at 23:00 UK time, Group I opener (1) (2) (4). A whole generation has never seen this. Haaland and Ødegaard were not even born the last time Norway were on this stage (3). The wait is over.

Haaland on Ødegaard: "This will only get better"

Erling Haaland kept it simple ahead of the Iraq match. "It's great to play with Ødegaard. This will only get better in the coming years. We are still young," the 25-year-old said, both of them World Cup debutants for a nation that last qualified before they existed (3).

Ødegaard: from outsider to captain

Martin Ødegaard arrives at his first World Cup as Norway's leader, but his path was never smooth. He told The Players' Tribune in 2023 about his Real Madrid years: "With the B team I wasn't with them regularly, so I didn't find that connection. In the first team I was just a kid who went to train. I wasn't involved in the games. I felt a bit like a stranger" (3). Loans to Heerenveen and Vitesse rebuilt him. Arsenal made him captain. Now he leads Norway into their biggest night in 28 years.

Fan reactions

Norwegian fans are treating Tuesday like a national holiday. The preview threads are full of supporters who genuinely never believed they would see this day, and the tone is half joy, half disbelief. The Haaland-Ødegaard partnership is the obvious obsession, but there is real curiosity about how Solbakken's modern system holds up against an Iraq side carrying its own historic narrative. The 28-year exile ends with an offensive avalanche, as one preview put it.