Atle Hetland
Every year at the beginning of August, the “Norway Cup” is held in Oslo. It is a large children’s and youth football tournament, the largest in the world, they claim, with some 30,000 boys and girls between the ages of 6 and 19 playing some 5,000 football matches. This year, there was also a team from Palestine, as well as teams from more than 20 countries worldwide, and certainly from small and large places all over Norway, including Erling Braut Haaland’s hometown, Bryne, in the south-west of the country, near the city of Stavanger, often referred to as the ‘oil capital’ because much of the country’s rich offshore oil is landed there.
If Haaland (26) wasn’t already a household name before the recently concluded FIFA Football World Cup, he is now known everywhere. He scored no fewer than seven goals before Norway lost to England in the quarter-final. England eventually became the third-best team, winning the bronze medal. Along with Norway, other small countries did well, too, such as Cape Verde and Belgium. People began to ask how small countries could do so well against large, populous countries, including those in Latin America, such as Argentina, which won the silver medal, while Spain secured gold and will be the reigning world champion in football until the next World Cup in 2030. It will be hosted by Morocco, Portugal and Spain, along with Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay as centenary hosts, marking a hundred years since the first FIFA World Cup was held in Latin America in 1930. True, no one can beat the celebratory football atmosphere that Latin American countries create—even overshadowing cricket tournaments when Pakistan and other Commonwealth countries do well. In future, let us see how well Pakistani teams can do in football while certainly continuing to do well in cricket.
Still, at top sporting events, men’s competitions are the most popular, but that may well change in the coming decades. Perhaps we will see mixed-gender sports, too, especially in fields where technique and speed are essential, rather than only strength and size. However, the last Football World Cup, where Haaland did so well, was about the latter; after all, Haaland is a giant, not far from two metres tall, reaching 6 feet 5 inches, or 1.95 metres, and weighing 88 kg. But the Norwegian national team captain, Martin Ødegaard (27), usually the captain of Arsenal in England, is only 5 feet 10 inches, or 1.78 metres, tall and twenty kilos lighter than Haaland, yet is still a player in the top league. And this week, when many seem to want FIFA President Gianni Infantino to resign over controversies, Norwegian Football President Lise Klaveness has been mentioned as a possible successor. But perhaps the time has not yet come for a woman to win the votes for the top post in the conservative, male-dominated FIFA organisation.
As for top women in sports, let me mention Sonja Henie (1912–1969), a Norwegian figure skater and film star who was World Champion ten times in a row and also won three Olympic gold medals. As a film star in Hollywood, it is said that she was the highest-paid of all the actors. Even in our time, with widescreen television, there would certainly be potential for the revival of sports such as figure skating and ice dancing, for both women and men. Sports are about physical achievements, but also about entertainment for stadium spectators and television viewers, with income opportunities for advertisers and sponsors.
And now, some reflections on why certain sports do well in local communities and produce players such as Haaland and Ødegaard. In Sonja Henie’s time, as in many sports today and in music and other performing arts, rigorous individual practice is what makes performers excel. In sports and games such as football, it is certainly also about practising, but within a community. Fellow players, spectators, parents and others are essential for motivating those who are good, as well as those who are not so good. In Norway, as in most other countries, football is a spare-time activity played for fun by all boys, and now also by girls, with the competitive aspects coming later, usually only in the teenage years. In Bryne, where Haaland lived for most of his childhood, he is surely also a hero, as well as the same good kid he was in his schoolboy years, having retained his pleasant personality.
One story that a teacher told about him as a schoolboy was that he had said in class that it wasn’t so important for him to do well in school subjects because he was, anyway, just going to become a football player. He had the advantage that his father, Alfie (Alf-Inge) Haaland (53), had been a professional football player in Nottingham, Leeds and Manchester. It should be noted that exposure has been important for his son in an unusual field such as professional sports abroad. Many dream of doing well, but without role models and contacts, it is difficult to be recruited and to handle the success and high income that come to the few who succeed. The close involvement and guidance of parents, and possibly other relatives, are essential, as has fortunately been the case for Haaland and Ødegaard. Both have also maintained lasting, close contact with their hometowns—Bryne for Haaland and Bragernes in Drammen for Ødegaard—where the heroes may well be heroes, but are also ordinary members of their home communities, alongside old school friends and others.
Before ending my article today, let me draw attention to some moral and educational aspects, although the life stories of the sporting giants I have mentioned already contain moral advice and lessons based on their own lives. Bryne and the surrounding Jæren area form a fertile and mild lowland facing the ocean, known for its large agricultural farms. The less fertile, stony and hilly inland areas have smaller farms. All are home to hard-working, frugal people, many of whom have traditionally been active in the local church and laypeople’s movement. The area sent many emigrants to the USA from the 1850s onwards, but there were also clever local inventors and industrialists who stayed behind, some of whom succeeded in manufacturing modern agricultural machinery and equipment.
In some of my recent articles, I have underlined that there should be less competition and fewer exams in schools, as well as a smaller fixed curriculum, but more moral education and encouragement for students to do more of what interests them, so that every school day can be pleasant for all children and young people, regardless of their liking for theoretical school subjects. I have included football and other sports only to a limited extent, except as means of relaxation and learning teamwork. Yet, we know that succeeding in sports is certainly demanding and difficult, and probably also quite lonely. Hence, we should appreciate and be proud of those who do so while keeping their feet firmly on the ground in their lives and relationships. At the ‘Norway Cup’ this year, I am sure there were talent scouts around, perhaps spotting new players to take over from Haaland and Ødegaard, who are already in a slightly older age bracket and may already be preparing to become coaches, leaders and goodwill ambassadors in sports, or to move on to new roles in the private or public sectors.
The writer is a senior Norwegian social scientist with experience from university, diplomacy and development aid. He can be reached at atlehetland@yahoo.com
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