Sport7 min(s) read
Erling Haaland eats beef hearts for breakfast, sleeps 10 hours a night with tape over his mouth, meditates before every match, and has scored in every single competitive game for Norway since October 2024.
Now he is coming for England.
The 25-year-old Manchester City striker has been the standout player at the 2026 World Cup, firing Norway into a quarter-final against the Three Lions after a tournament that has seen him rack up seven goals in four games.
Norway, who had not qualified for a World Cup since 1998, are now one win away from the semi-finals - and the man leading the charge runs on a regime that makes most elite athletes' routines look casual.
This is where it gets interesting.
Haaland consumes around 6,000 calories a day - roughly three times the recommended intake for an adult male.
His diet is built around whole, unprocessed foods with an emphasis on organ meats that most people would not touch.
In his 2022 Viaplay documentary Haaland: The Big Decision, he was filmed carrying a bag of beef liver and heart from a local butcher.
"People say meat is bad for you," he said.
"But which meat? The meat you buy at McDonald's? Or the local cow eating grass right over there?
"I eat the heart and the liver."
British tabloids labelled the diet 'cannibalistic'.
Nutritionists, on the other hand, pointed out that liver is arguably the most nutrient-dense single food that exists - packed with vitamin A, every B vitamin, folate, copper, iron, and high-quality protein.
The rest of his daily intake includes fatty steaks (ribeye and tomahawk are his favourites), eggs, fresh fish, sourdough bread, and what he calls his 'magic potion' - a blend of raw milk, spinach, and kale that he carries to training sessions.
He adds maple syrup and raw unpasteurised milk to his morning coffee, which he considers "a superfood if you do it right".
His girlfriend, Norwegian footballer Isabel Haugseng Johansen, summed it up in a YouTube video: "Oh my god, he eats so much. Everything is about, 'When is the next meal? What should we eat? What shall we make?'"
His one ritual that never changes is the lasagne his father Alf-Inge cooks for him before every home match. Pep Guardiola reportedly joked about hiring Alf-Inge as Manchester City's club chef.
His rare cheat meal? A kebab pizza from his hometown of Bryne.
"I never eat it, only on special occasions," he has said.
"Maybe once a year, if I'm lucky."
The physical transformation has been staggering.
A former coach at RB Salzburg described the teenager who arrived at the club as a 'Cyborgoal' - a football cyborg - after he gained 12 kilograms of muscle in just 15 months.
His training regime prioritises speed, power, and endurance over heavy lifting.
Former Salzburg coach Stanislav Macek revealed that Haaland was doing 300 press-ups and 1,000 sit-ups a day during his time at the club.
He runs hill sprints repeatedly, favours HIIT sessions over traditional gym work, and finishes every session with 10 to 20 minutes of stretching and mobility work.
At 6ft 4in and 94kg, he is built more like a sprinter than a traditional striker. He told AS that the weight gain was "gross muscle mass" rather than bulk, and that his diet was the driving force behind it.
"The better food you put in your body, the better you're going to get things out of it," he said on the Man City podcast. "And performance as well."
This is where it tips from disciplined into obsessive.
Haaland's daily recovery routine includes cryotherapy, red light therapy, hot stone baths, saunas, and personalised physiotherapy sessions.
He wears blue-light-blocking glasses before bed.
He tapes his mouth shut at night to encourage nasal breathing during sleep.
He drinks only filtered water. He makes a point of getting morning sunlight and fresh air, and has said that one of his favourite summer habits is eating breakfast outdoors to regulate his circadian rhythm.
He sleeps around 10 hours a night and has described sleep as the single most important factor in his performance.
"Sleep is the most important thing," he told The Mirror.
"I am obsessed with sleep. If I sleep well, I play well. It is the clearest connection in my life."
He also meditates daily - the habit behind his famous cross-legged goal celebration. He has said it helps him "find an inner peace" that translates directly to how he plays.
Haaland was born in Leeds in 2000 while his father Alf-Inge was playing in the Premier League for Leeds United.
Alf-Inge also played for Nottingham Forest and Manchester City, creating a family legacy his son would later continue at the Etihad.
Despite being born in England, Haaland grew up in Bryne, a small town on Norway's southwestern coast.
He is fiercely proud of his Norwegian identity and has leaned into the Viking imagery more than most.
In March, he spent 1.3 million Norwegian kroner - around $136,000 - to buy a one-of-a-kind 16th-century Viking history book and put it on public display in Bryne.
Before the World Cup, Norway's squad posed as Vikings on the shore in full battle regalia.
The team have since embraced the 'Viking Row' - a fan-created chant in which thousands of supporters sit on the ground in a longboat formation and row to the beat of a Norse horn and drum.
It has become the defining image of the tournament, drawing comparisons with Iceland's 'Thunder Clap' at Euro 2016.
Haaland and captain Martin Ødegaard joined the fans in performing the row after Norway's 3-2 win over Senegal, which confirmed their place in the knockout rounds.
"I saw it online; it's gone completely viral," Haaland told Fox Sports.
"Martin asked me before the game: 'Do you think we should join in?'"
Historically good. Haaland has scored in every competitive game for Norway since October 2024 - a run of 14 matches and 27 goals that has no modern equivalent in international football.
He scored twice in the 4-1 opening win over Iraq and has not stopped since.
"I'm incredibly proud to make my World Cup debut and to win Norway's first World Cup match in 28 years," he said after that first game. "I hope people will party."
England. In the quarter-final. A Manchester City striker coming up against the country of his birth.
It is one of those fixtures that this World Cup seems to have been building towards.
Norway were not supposed to be here, they had not qualified for a major tournament knockout stage in almost three decades.
But Haaland, Ødegaard, and the Viking Row have turned them into one of the stories of the tournament - and England will know exactly what they are walking into.
The 2026 World Cup has had no shortage of talking points, from travel ban controversies to surprise results.
But few stories have captured the imagination quite like Norway's run - and the man at the centre of it who eats cow hearts for fuel and tapes his mouth shut before bed.
England have been warned.
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We're well aware athletes have certain rituals they execute before a big game.
Olympians tend to eat a controlled portion of carbs to get them through their heat or final, LeBron James goes really lean with his food for big games and through the playoffs (that still can't help him carry a whole team against the Golden State Warriors). Superstar football player Cristiano Ronaldo apparently eats whatever he likes (within reason) for big games.
Speaking of the Beautiful Game, the stakes are pretty high at the World Cup right now. 32 men's national teams have convened on Russia to see who is the best of the best at kicking a ball around. But some teams are more cautious than others; in particular, the English national team.
After the March nerve agent attack on ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, the English soccer team now faces a food ban while they stay in Russia for the games. National paper the Sun reports that security around kitchens is on “high alert”, with the team “under strict orders to reject any food not approved by their expert chefs.”
Nutritionists and chefs have also been flown to their hotel.
Harry Kane, Raheem Sterling, Jessie Lingard and the rest of the are not allowed to grab anything from the mini-bar or room service. The hope is that they’re still eating something to get them to peak performance for their many matchups, just not from anything they perceive to be Russian made - which is a shame, because a lot of the media seems to report a very welcoming hospitality from the Russians during their stay at the many locations for the tournament.
The Sun reported: “Players are snacking on items such as sushi and oatcakes with cream cheese. Only drinks such as herbal teas made by the nutritionists are allowed." The players have to eat about 5,000 calories at five meals during the tournament, which may consist of “tiny pieces of dark and white chocolate, small dishes of apple or brownies.
Breakfast will include up to five eggs, cooked how each player prefers. Guess victory requires a lot of protein. So far, the team has defeated Tunisia 2-1 and faces Panama on Sunday, June 24. This is before their third and final group match against a potential European juggernaut in Belgium on Thursday, June 28.
As England's prospects in the tournament go, they are pretty decent. It's a cliché to state that game one of the groups is a must-win, but it's never been truer for this crop of aspiring World Cup winners.
With a new manager, a focus on young potential and a new system, there were bound to be nerves going into the first game. Against a Tunisia side that is difficult to break down, the England captain Harry Kane led by example, scoring two goals to take the team to the top of the group.
As invigorating as it was to see England's main man do what he does best, it will fall to other rising stars and even the exuberant youth to take England beyond the quarter finals. Let's hope their diet and potential poisoning doesn't get in the way.
You're probably not that into sport. But once every four years, like most people, you grab a beer and a replica football jersey, and sit down to watch the World Cup. It's one of the most-watched sporting events in the world, with the final in 2014 pulling in over a billion people.
This year, you might have watched what some consider the game of the tournament so far: a 3-3 draw between Spain and Portugal. Amidst the fouls, free kicks and general frenzy that football brings, you might have noticed that all of Portugal's goals were scored by one man, wearing the number seven.
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That man is Cristiano Ronaldo. For fans of football, he needs no introduction. For many ladies, he needs very little introduction; not only does he have the football skills of a Greek god, but he's got the body to match. Either way, if Cristiano Ronaldo invited you to have lunch, you'd probably jump at the opportunity.
However, one of his former teammates says that at all costs, you should politely turn down Ronaldo's offer.
French defender Patrice Evra played with Ronaldo for three years (from 2006-2009) at Manchester United, and speaking on ITV's 2018 World Cup podcast, he recounted a time that the 33-year-old Portuguese invited him to his house for lunch. Turns out, you do not want to go to lunch with Cristiano Ronaldo.
It all started off pretty innocuously. On the whole, despite being an athlete at the top of his game, Cristiano Ronaldo is known for having a pretty liberal diet in comparison to the likes of Tom Brady or LeBron, so when Evra was invited to Ronaldo's house for lunch, he was expecting a pretty big meal. He did not get that.
"[Ronaldo] said: 'Patrice, come over after training.' I went [and] you know I was really tired. At the table there was only salad and plain white chicken so I was like 'okay…,' and water, not any juice. We started eating and I was thinking some big meat would be coming after that but there was nothing."
Okay... that's fair. After all, they'd just finished training, and maybe there was an element of keeping himself in shape ahead of a big match. But then, things really got weird.
"He had just finished and he stood up and he started playing with a ball, doing some skills and he said: 'Let's do some two touch.' I was like 'can I just finish eating?' [Ronaldo replied] 'No, no let's play two-touch.' We start playing two touch. After that he said let's go to the pool to swim, I was like 'okay…' after going in the jacuzzi, the sauna, I'm done."
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Yeah, it turns out that even after Manchester United training had ended, Cristiano Ronaldo carried on right afterward. Some say he never stops training. Football fans will obviously know that Ronaldo was always talented, but Evra's story shows just how far he's willing to push himself to reach the top of the game, and at 33, when most players' bodies begin to break down, Ronaldo seems to be moving from strength to strength.
Having been given the Ballon d'Or Award for the world's best footballer for the last two years, Ronaldo's aiming to win the award for the record-breaking sixth time this year, and one way to help his chances is to win the World Cup with Portugal. They're not one of the favourites, but with Ronaldo in his current form, anything's possible.
Soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo is known for his impeccably muscular physique, a physique he has evidently trained hard for, through his incredibly disciplined and painstaking fitness regime.
But as they always say, abs are made in the kitchen, and Ronaldo relies on a nutritious, balanced diet to maintain his chiseled body.
Per the Sun, the 34-year-old eats little and often, enjoying up to six meals a day. Unsurprisingly, given its many health benefits, fish is a huge part of his diet.
This is the emotional moment Cristiano Ronaldo cried during a candid interview with Piers Morgan:
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According to the publication, Swordfish, tuna, and braised cod are amongst the former Manchester United star's favorite fish dishes.
In fact, Ronaldo apparently referred to fish as "magical" due to its high protein and low-fat content.
For an early-morning breakfast, the athlete will indulge in ham and cheese and low-fat yogurt. And if he doesn't have it for breakfast, Ronaldo will help himself to some avocado toast for a snack.
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A typical lunch will either be chicken and salad, or a fish dish - for instance, tuna with salad, eggs, and olives.
For dinner, Ronaldo enjoys a meal primarily made of either meat or fish. For instance, a typical dinner might be made up of braised cod, onions, thinly sliced potatoes, and scrambled eggs.
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His diet aside, Ronaldo has his home gym to thank for much of his training and those enviable abs.
He explained to Goal.com:
"In training we do a few laps of the pitch, stretching, and cardio exercises [to warm-up]. Make sure you do something similar in your training, even if it is jogging to the gym or a warm up on the treadmill or bicycle."
He added: “We do a lot of sprinting drills in training and they can be incorporated into your workout whether you are in the gym or outdoors. Try and add it to every workout you do."
PETA has slammed Heidi Montag's decision to snack on an uncooked bison heart in public as part of her raw meat diet.
The Hills star, 35, was seen carrying a plastic bag with a raw bison piece of meat inside of it during a stroll in Los Angeles.
The reality star first revealed her bizarre diet in January, when she filmed herself eating raw liver and shared the video on Instagram.
She called it "breakfast of champions," and tagged Dr. Paul Saladino, whose Instagram page was used to promote the health benefits of eating raw meat.
Now, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals - more commonly known as PETA - has taken to Twitter to slam Montag's raw meat diet.
"Seems pretty heartless to steal someone else's heart. They can't live without it. @heidimontag, you can," PETA wrote in a tweet.
While Montag did not respond to the tweet, she did repost a photo of her eating the raw bison heart on her Instagram Story.
Montag, meanwhile, shared yet another video of herself eating raw liver in February.
"There are so many health benefits to eating liver, animal organs, raw liver," she said in the video.
According to Healthline, those who eat raw meat are at risk of "contracting a foodborne illness," adding that bacteria and other potentially harmful pathogens are generally destroyed when the meat is properly cooked.
Healthline also points out that "certain at-risk populations, such as children, pregnant or nursing women, and older adults, should avoid eating raw meat altogether."
Heidi's husband Spencer recently revealed on the Unpopular podcast that she had become interested in a raw meat diet after learning about it from Doctor Paul Saladino, who, despite offering nutritional advice, is a psychiatrist.
"Doctor Paul Saladino, the carnivore doc on Instagram, he has a book called The Carnivore Code, we listened to the audio book," he explained.
"The most nutrients are in these live organs, and I also follow this guy called The Liver King," he continued, adding: "[Heidi's] built differently. She can really eat this stuff. I can't."
All across the globe, World Cup fever has gripped every nation, as people from all four corners of human society come together to watch a ton of sport, drink a ton of beers, and generally get merry for the biggest sporting event in the world. While last time in 2014, the World Cup came to you from Brazil, this year, Russia are the hosts.
Hosting a World Cup can be a transformative experience (just ask South Korea), but from the outside looking in, it's hard to understand the level of effort that goes into hosting one. Not only do you have to have the necessary infrastructure in terms of stadiums and accommodation, but the locals have to adapt as well.
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Having so many passionate (possibly drunk) football fans traipsing through your home streets can be a difficult experience, but if you can be welcoming enough, it's an amazing opportunity to learn about cultures other than your own. One Burger King location out in Russia at the moment are apparently very keen on Russian locals... er, making the most of the World Cup experience.
On the social media site VK (kind of like the Russian version of Facebook), Burger King Russia caught the eye of the world over after apparently promising a lifetime supply of Whoppers, not to mention 3 million Rubles, to anyone who manages to get pregnant by a footballer at this year's World Cup.
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That's right - not only did someone have the idea of cash incentives to bed Harry Kane, Paul Pogba or Cristiano Ronaldo, but it was Burger King, who actually thought it was a good enough to go along with. Though (of course) the post has since been deleted. Here's the glorious post in question, roughly translated by Deadspin:
"Burger King, within the framework of social responsibility, has appointed a reward for girls who get pregnant from the stars of world football. Each will receive 3 million rubles, and a lifelong supply of Whoppers. For these girls, it will be possible to get the best football genes, and will lay down the success of the Russian national team on several generations ahead. Forward! We believe in you!"
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So the idea behind it is to ensnare the greatest footballing talent the world has to offer in order breed a new generation of super footballers. Who, then, will use their natural talent (and inevitable daddy issues) to propel Russia to glory in a World Cup 20 to 30 decades from now. Okay.
Now, this is obviously insane. So it was no surprised that Burger King Russia had to issue an apology. "We apologise for the statement we made. It turned out to be too insulting. We thank you for the feedback," says Burger King Russia, and although "insulting" doesn't quite cover the insanity proposed in that original post, kudos to them for putting together an... unforgettable promotion ahead of the World Cup.
