Brazil spent years preparing for another World Cup. Nobody prepared them for Erling Haaland. After Norway's stunning last-16 upset, social media declared the striker an alien, a robot, a government project and, above all else, football's ultimate "final boss".
Brazil, five-time world champions, crashed out of the World Cup at the hands of a nation still chasing its first title on football's biggest stage, reviving memories of Norway's shock victory over the Seleção in the 1998 World Cup Round of 16.
If the result stunned football fans, the internet wasted little time turning it into comedy. Social media platforms were flooded with memes portraying Haaland as everything from a "final boss" to a video-game cheat code.
One widely shared joke claimed, "Brazil completed the tutorial. Haaland entered the game," while another insisted the Manchester City striker was not a footballer at all, but a "government project".
Others dusted off the long-running "robot" narrative, joking that Haaland had received another software update before kick-off while Brazil's defenders failed to install the latest patch.
One AI-generated clip quickly escaped the football bubble. It showed Haaland startling at his own reflection in a mirror, spawning a joke that almost everyone seemed to agree on: "Only Haaland can scare Haaland."
The comparisons did not stop at football. Fans cast Haaland as everything from the Terminator to Majin Buu, the iconic Dragon Ball Z villain, whose relentless destruction seemed a fitting comparison for the Norwegian's ability to flatten defences. For many anime fans, it was the crossover they never knew they needed.
Ever since bursting onto the scene with Red Bull Salzburg and Borussia Dortmund before becoming Manchester City's prolific goalscorer, Haaland has been portrayed as something other than human — a machine engineered to score, a Viking built in a laboratory, or an alien sent to terrorise defenders. Today's performance merely added another chapter to that mythology.
Some users also revived an earlier viral image from Norway's match against Iraq, where Haaland was seen charging aggressively at a defender. Within hours of Brazil's elimination, the picture had been repurposed as a warning for Norway's next opponents — England.
A budding meme war between Brazilian winger Vinícius Jr and Haaland — one that both players had acknowledged — reached its culmination after the final whistle, with the Norwegian very much having the last laugh.
Norway's victory also reignited Haaland's long-running Premier League rivalry with Brazil defender Gabriel Magalhães. In the 79th minute, the striker rose above Gabriel to power a towering header beyond Alisson, prompting fans to declare that Haaland had settled the score on football's biggest stage.
The rivalry dates back to 2024, when Haaland's "stay humble" remark sparked a war of words with Arsenal players and supporters, with Gabriel becoming one of its central figures. After today's match, pundits criticised the Brazilian defender's positioning, arguing that Haaland had simply overpowered and outmanoeuvred him in the decisive moment.
One fan perhaps summed it up best: "Norway just rowed their Viking ship straight through Brazil's defence."
Off the pitch, Haaland has cultivated an internet persona that's almost as entertaining as his goals.
His public Snapchat and Instagram stories are filled with unglamorous low-angle selfies, face filters, Pokémon screenshots, flight maps and misspelled captions that make him look more like an overgrown teenager than one of football's biggest superstars.
In an age where elite athletes curate every post, Haaland has somehow built a brand around looking as though he couldn't care less.
Haaland himself joined the fun shortly after Norway's victory, posting a picture captioned, "Well, well, well". It didn't take long for fans to pile in.
A fan wrote, "The worst thing about Haaland scoring against you is knowing he'll be on Snapchat making corny jokes afterwards."
His off-field antics have amused fans almost as much as his finishing. He once admitted to ignoring an Instagram dinner invitation from actor Tom Holland because he had no idea the message had come from the Spider-Man star.
Even his unexpectedly public Pinterest profile has become meme material, reinforcing the image of a football superstar who seems blissfully uninterested in behaving like one.
His diet, which has become internet folklore in its own right, is more shocking than the man himself.
Haaland's much-discussed 6,000-calorie routine, nicknamed the "Hannibal Lecter diet", revolves around organ meats, specialised water and an obsession with bio-hacking. His social media accounts have featured trays of beef liver and other meals are a classic vegan’s nightmare.
One post, showing a baking tray piled with charred beef liver and captioned simply, "That's splendid!", quickly went viral, with many joking that it looked less like football fuel and more like something from an alien cookbook.
His social sense is also a part of memes by now, be it ignoring Spider-Man's messages, posting deliberately awkward selfies, terrifying defenders or accidentally terrifying himself in an AI-generated clip, Haaland rarely behaves like the polished global superstar modern football has come to expect.