Norway’s players performed an incredible Viking Row with fans to celebrate reaching the World Cup knockout stages for the first time in 28 years after defeating Senegal 3-2 in New York on Tuesday.
After Marcus Holmgren Pedersen fired Norway ahead in the first half, Erling Haaland steered his side to victory with two crucial goals in the second, as Senegal twice clawed a goal back through Crystal Palace winger Ismaila Sarr.
The victory meant Norway, who defeated Iraq 4-1 in their first match, successfully qualified for the knockout stages for the first time since 1998, and the players were determined to celebrate in style.
A drum was brought out on to the pitch at the New York New Jersey Stadium for captain Martin Odegaard, who led an astonishing Viking Row ritual in celebration.
Haaland and his team-mates sat on the turf and performed a rowing motion along with thousands in the stadium as conductor Odegaard beat the drum with passion, speeding up with each strike.
Norway’s football team are clearly still very in touch with their Viking roots, as not only demonstrated by the celebration but also by their pre-World Cup team photograph, which went viral worldwide.
Martin Odegaard led a remarkable Viking Row celebration after Norway beat Senegal 3-2
Erling Haaland netted twice to send Norway to the knockout stage for the first time since 1998
Ahead of arriving in the United States for the World Cup, Norway’s players were styled as Vikings on a beach in Oslo during an extraordinary photoshoot.
While many lauded the creative and epic nature of the photo, there were groups of woke critics who were left angry and upset by the aesthetic, due to the Vikings’ large-scale raiding, colonising, pillaging and raping throughout their dominant era.
The images were labelled ‘chauvinistic and exclusionary’ by Norwegian journalist Markus Slettholm, who reports for the newspaper Morgenbladet.
Despite the backlash, Odegaard and Co stayed true to their Viking roots with a celebration that has gone viral across social media on Tuesday morning.
Norway will next meet France at the World Cup in their final group stage game, with both sides already picking up two wins from their opening two matches.
The clash will be branded as the battle between in-form Haaland and Kylian Mbappe, who have each scored four goals so far in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
