Norway may have suffered a disappointing defeat to England in the 2026 World Cup quarter-finals, but star player Erling Haaland still walked away a winner.
For the past month, the 25-year-old, long blonde-haired Norwegian has become a viral internet sensation, thanks to his endearing personality on and off the field.
In his latest move that has fans laughing, Haaland returned to Norway bearing a bizarre souvenir: a taxidermied raccoon.
A picture of the Manchester City striker disembarking a plane shows him proudly cradling a stuffed raccoon with its own alcohol bottle.
“It followed me home,” Haaland wrote Monday on Instagram, alongside a second photo of him walking on the tarmac carrying the memento.
Fans found the photo and caption hilarious. One commented on Instagram, “Man we’re so lucky to have you in this world.”
“I just know he bought that in TX,” another wrote while others called the move “iconic” and left laughing emojis on Haaland’s post.
The raccoon only added to Haaland’s list of recent shenanigans that have launched him to global internet stardom.
One of his first viral moments of the 2026 World Cup arrived when he walked off the field, his head and neck extended and his shoulders stiff.
His unusual posture spawned numerous memes, recreation clips and odd comparisons to everything from a green onion top to other oddly shaped objects.
Haaland’s embrace of the American South has also become another much-talked-about moment.
One video showed him shopping for a cowboy hat, declaring that it makes him look like a “proper cowboy.”
Another featured him pretending to be the “social media guy” when approached by a fan. “Somebody just told me that one of you is like the biggest soccer player in the world,” a woman said to Haaland, who points to his YouTube producer, Jonathan Turton.
“You’re looking at him,” Turton joked, flexing his arm muscles. Haaland told the woman to take a photo with the two of them and show it to their friend, asking them to guess which one is the soccer star.
“No worries, y’all,” he said in an exaggerated Southern accent.
He also shared a clip of himself trying a New York City deli sandwich. While riding in the backseat of a black SUV, Haaland looked at the sandwich piled high with meat and proceeds to take a giant bite. Shaking his head in approval, he looked up, letting out a big laugh at the cameraman.
To commemorate his time in America, Haaland posted an Instagram selfie aboard a bus. Wearing a backward hat and sunglasses, he wrote “Goodbye,” next to an American flag emoji. “It’s been emotional.”
