Erling Haaland is Norway's World Cup machine — and the internet's 'babygirl'

Erling Haaland stands at 6 feet, 5 inches, an intimidating force who can make fellow soccer players look tiny in stature and talent. Scoring seven goals across four World Cup matches entering Saturday, the Norwegian player has been described as a machine. But if you ask some loyal new fans, he’s also a babygirl and princess.

Haaland has become a social media phenomenon, with his own posts and memes from others turning even soccer novices into diehard fans.

His domineering physical appearance coupled with his goofy online persona have contributed to the craze. Fans remark on his flowing blond mane, color-coordinated hair ties and playful posts like a Snapchat-filtered selfie in which he proclaimed Shrek his “twin.” The contrast between his strength and skill on the field and his softer, looser online presence has also subjected him to the “babygirl” treatment online. That term is used frequently by fans of endearing male celebrities or characters who come across as sensitive, caring or vulnerable.

Haaland is emblematic of a broader embrace of soccer players as pop culture figures, driven in large part by how they present themselves off the pitch.

Sarah Wilson, a baseball content creator in New York, is new to following soccer, but has become a big enough fan in the past month that she embarked on a lengthy hunt to buy the jersey of her new favorite player.

“I love Erling Haaland more than life itself,” Wilson, 31, said in a now viral video. “I cannot fathom being such a pretty Norwegian princess and also being one of the best strikers in all of football.”

Haaland is being catapulted into a fame even more intense than he had already known as the Premier League's top scorer. This moment boils down to the pairing of elite skills with quirky personality, Wilson said.

“Him being really, really talented — that’s the first pillar of it all. And then you find out that he’s 25 years old and he’s probably the most Gen Z athlete in the World Cup,” Wilson told The Associated Press, noting his use of Snapchat and goofy filters in photos online. Many are thinking, “‘Wow, I love that guy, he’s hilarious. Now he’s my new favorite player,’ which is exactly what happened with me,” she added.

Haaland’s expressive reactions on the pitch and his unique appearance have spawned hundreds of memes. He’s leaned into this virality, posting cheeky selfies on Instagram, uploading long-form vlogs on YouTube and interacting with fans on his public Snapchat stories, often poking fun at himself.

After scoring two goals to knock out Brazil, he posted a smug selfie from the locker room with the caption, “Well well well.” When an Instagram video with nearly 100 million views likened his appearance to a green onion — its wiry roots standing in as his hair — Haaland responded in the comments with a side-eyeing dog GIF. When Google added a Viking row animation to his search results, Haaland wrote on X, “One thing to do today… search my name on Google,” with a winking emoji.

Haaland said in a team news conference on Thursday that he's enjoyed being embraced in the U.S.

“I think it’s a good thing because I like the Americans. I think they are kind of hilarious as well. They are funny. I like the way they are,” he said. “I think it's just good and honestly, on every single thing, the World Cup so far here has been amazing.”

Sports are a “cultural force,” one on par with politics or religion, said Jeffrey Kassing, an Arizona State University professor who has studied fans' and athletes' social media use. It’s natural that Haaland has “crossed over” into non-soccer audiences, he said. A song from his youth has gone viral. A lookalike contest is in the offing. Even dogs are sporting blond wigs.

“There used to be a whole lot of gatekeeping that would happen with athletes; you would only ever hear from athletes maybe in an interview or in a press conference,” Kassing said. Haaland is evidence of how players have much more control in shaping their image now, he added.

Fans' access to athletes contributes to what is called a parasocial relationship, defined by one-way knowing, said Gayle Stever, a professor at Empire State University who has studied the dynamics between celebrities and fans for decades. Haaland’s fans feel like they know him on a personal level, but he doesn’t know the nearly 60 million people who follow him on Instagram alone.

The majority of parasocial relationships are “positive, healthy and normal,” Stever said. Only a small percentage of people take it to the extreme, she said.

Skyla Clarke, a 19-year-old sports management student in Brisbane, Australia — and lifelong soccer fan — says she's seen that uglier side rear its head; attacks on players after poor performances, and even unprovoked hate toward athletes’ wives and partners are not uncommon. Haaland himself called AI-generated content of players a “bit scary.” But he noted in Norwegian that the attention on the team and its traditions — the rowing cheer, for example — is a sign of praise.

“Usually if it’s like that, it means that you’re doing something right, and that your country is doing something right,” Haaland said.

Even healthy parasocial dynamics can seem unusual to those uninitiated in internet culture. Haaland is not the only player whose persona has blown up on social media, nor is he the only one fans have anointed a babygirl.

Fans have described feeling “maternal” toward Luka Modrić — especially after Croatia’s elimination in the 40-year-old's final international game. Modrić is a “special case” whose difficult upbringing amid Yugoslavia's dissolution plays into how fans characterize him online, Clarke said. Some will incorporate childhood photos of him into their content, creating “a deeper appreciation for him as a player,” she added. Clarke's TikTok video about Modrić’s potential retirement reached hundreds of thousands of viewers in a matter of days.

Modrić himself has a rather tame social media presence, especially compared with Haaland, but Kassing noted fans “take it upon themselves to try to shape the perception” of those with whom they develop a parasocial attachment. In Modrić and Haaland’s cases, some do this by overlaying bows and hearts on their images.

Ahead of Norway’s match against England in the quarterfinals on Saturday, fans have also focused intensely on Haaland’s friendship with English player Jude Bellingham, his former teammate. Some have “shipped” the two footballers, making edits of them hugging or celebrating together and drawing comparisons to the television sensation “Heated Rivalry,” in which two pro hockey opponents develop a romance off the ice.

“People have been saying ‘heated Haalandry,’” said Nulara Ratwatté, a 19-year-old art student at the University of Melbourne. She's one of many fans whose videos about their newfound love of Haaland have gone viral.

Ratwatté said she’s “not supposed to talk about football” because of her lack of knowledge, but she's not looking back after catching Haaland fever. She describes him as a “big, friendly giant,” and despite her lack of soccer savvy, she's now tuning in to cheer Norway on.

“Truly, from the bottom of my heart,” she said, “I love him.”

AP Sports Writer Tim Reynolds in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, contributed to this report.

See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

A pair of dogs wear Norway's flag, a Viking helmet and a blond ponytail hairpiece suggestive of striker Erling Haaland's hair, as Norway soccer fans gather on Ocean Drive in Miami Beach, Fla., Friday, July 10, 2026, on the eve of their team's quarterfinal World Cup soccer match against England. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Croatia's Luka Modric (10) celebrates a win during the World Cup Group L soccer match between Croatia and Ghana in Philadelphia, Saturday, June 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Norway's Erling Haaland (9) leads the team as they participate in a viking boat row after the World Cup round of 16 soccer match between Brazil and Norway in East Rutherford, N.J., near New York, Sunday, July 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

Norway's Erling Haaland (9) poses after the World Cup round of 32 soccer match between Ivory Coast and Norway in Arlington, Texas, near Dallas, Tuesday, June 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Jessica Tobias)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump threatened Iran on Saturday after the funeral of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saw open calls for his killing, further underlining the tensions gripping the Mideast as an interim deal to end the war buckles under repeated crossfire in the region.

Trump made the comments on his Truth Social after senior U.S. officials demanded that Iran make a public statement saying the Strait of Hormuz is open and that ships crossing the vital corridor won’t be attacked any longer.

So far, Tehran has not done so, instead insisting the route remain under its control and that it be allowed to charge ships moving through it, upending decades of precedence considering the strait an international waterway.

There had been multiple days of U.S. airstrikes targeting Iran, as well as Iranian retaliatory fire targeting nations across the Mideast. Those strikes had been sparked by Iran attacking three ships in the strait earlier this week.

“1000 Missiles are Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran, with thousands of more to immediately follow, should the Iranian Government act on its threat,” Trump wrote on his website.

The U.S. president described his threat as coming over threats “to assassinate, or attempt to assassinate” him. During Khamenei's funeral, mourners repeatedly held posters or banners calling for him to be killed along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Iran war's opening moments on Feb. 28 saw an airstrike that killed Khamenei, 86. Iran only buried Khamenei this week in a dayslong funeral ceremony that saw his body taken to cities in both Iran and Iraq.

Trump added in his post that the U.S. military would “completely decimate and destroy all areas of Iran - PRAISE BE TO ALLAH!”

Trump repeatedly during the war and its uneasy ceasefire has invoked the name of God in Arabic, as well as threatened to destroy Iran's very civilization. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a nationwide advocacy group, in the past has criticized Trump’s “deranged mocking of Islam.”

The U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe to reporters the state of play with Iran, said the resumption of strikes this week came after what they described as a rogue faction of Iranian hard-liners trying to sabotage the ceasefire between Tehran and Washington.

However, Iran has insisted its theocracy is unified after the war under the country's new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei.

The U.S. officials said Friday that Trump is giving U.S. negotiators limited time to reach a deal with Iran, but, in a sign of the challenges ahead, they underscored that the president had a wide range of options if talks fall apart.

Moments before the U.S. officials spoke, however, Tehran’s diplomat at the United Nations told reporters that any activity in the Strait of Hormuz, including its opening or demining operations, “rests exclusively with Iran.”

Iran has said the strait must now be under its sole control and that vessels should begin to pay fees to Tehran — even though the world for decades has considered it an international waterway. About a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas passed through the strait before the war began.

Iran’s grip on the strait during the conflict led to a global energy crisis, though oil prices have sharply dropped since wartime highs of $120 a barrel.

After the U.S. wrapped up its latest strikes on Thursday, more attacks reportedly hit Iran, leaving questions about who else may be targeting the Islamic Republic. Israel didn't claim them, meaning the Gulf Arab states may have launched them, likely as a means to deter Iran from attacking them again. Iran on Thursday retaliated for U.S. strikes by targeting Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi plans to discuss the strait with his Omani counterpart at a meeting Saturday in Oman, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency said. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told his country’s state broadcaster TRT that he believed “a solution can be reached” this weekend between Iran and Oman, which lie on opposite sides of the narrow waterway.

However, Araghchi on Saturday accused the U.S. of violating the interim deal by ending waivers allowing Iran to sell crude oil on the open market in U.S. dollars. Washington did that in response to the attacks on ships in the strait.

“Reality check: There can only be mutual compliance,” Araghchi wrote on X.

The U.S. continues to urge mariners to travel on a southern route through Oman’s territorial waters to avoid Iranian waters and the commands of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. That has angered Tehran and sparked the attacks in the strait.

The U.S. officials also told journalists that any deal on Iran’s nuclear program would require Tehran to turn over its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. That's something Iran has repeatedly refused.

If the U.S. does not reach a deal with Iran to turn over its nuclear material, it has military options to ensure that it remains buried underground forever, the officials said. They did not detail those options.

The uranium, enriched to near weapons-grade levels, is believed to be at nuclear sites the U.S. bombed in 2025. Iran long has insisted its nuclear program is peaceful, despite the International Atomic Energy Agency saying the Islamic Republic is the only country in the world to enrich uranium so highly without a weapons program.

The officials also insisted that they would never reach a nuclear deal with Iran if it would not first stop its attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

Price and Weissert reported from Washington.

Mostafa Khamenei, center, brother of Iran's new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, leads a prayer over the coffin of his late father, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei before his burial at the Imam Reza Shrine in Mashhad, northeastern Iran, Thursday, July 9, 2026. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

In this photo released by Iran's Supreme Leader's office, mourners chant and raise their fists during the final funeral ceremony for the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the Imam Reza Shrine before his burial in Mashhad, northeastern Iran, Thursday, July 9, 2026. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

In this photo released by Iran's Supreme Leader's office, mourners carry the coffin of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei above the crowd for the final prayer before his burial at the Imam Reza Shrine in Mashhad, northeastern Iran, Thursday, July 9, 2026. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)