Erling Haaland and Martin Odegaard got polarizing reactions from Norwegian football fans ahead of their recent Euro 2024 qualifier against Spain. As they reached Oslo for the match in a team bus, the two weren’t exactly treated equally by the faithful standing for them.
After the team bus stopped outside the ground, Haaland was the first one to emerge from it. He was probably anticipated a lot of fans mobbing him and was readying himself for photographs and autographs. Instead, he got quite the opposite reaction. It didn’t look like any supporter was that keen on taking pictures with him.
In fact, it was Odegaard who attracted a lot of fans’ attention. The Arsenal captain immediately noticed a number of Arsenal fans standing outside and decided to greet them after coming out following Haaland.
The Norwegian captain had a lot of kids desperate to get his attention and interact with him for a bit. Being the kind person that he is, Odegaard took a lot of time to ensure that every kid had an autograph or picture with themselves after the interaction.
This little episode really blew over Football Twitter and got the Arsenal fans’ attention. If not anything else, it proves that the Gunners are still a much bigger and widely admired club around the globe than Manchester City – even despite their European Treble success.
Fans took time to mock Haaland for not being able to garner Odegaard’s popularity despite all his heroics. Arsenal actually have a large fan following in Norway and their own designated fan club as well. That is probably why the Gooners were more interested in rather taking snaps with Odegaard than a rival player in Haaland – despite their admiration for the national team striker.
City don't even have enough fans in Manchester to fill the Etihad, Arsenals fan base is huge worldwide.
Haaland and Odegaard, of course, have no issues playing with each other despite their clubs’ rivalry and will have to treat Norway’s upcoming games like finals to get them to Euro 2024.
