Norway's fairy-tale World Cup run ended the way most of them do: painfully, in extra time, against England. Andreas Schjelderup had the Scandinavians up before Jude Bellingham scored twice, including the extra-time winner, to send England to the semifinals with a 2-1 win. Game over, dream over. Except nobody in Norway got the memo that you're supposed to stay home and sulk after a loss like that.
The team's open-top bus rolling through a packed Oslo street at dusk, flags everywhere.
Instead, the country lost its mind in celebration anyway. Reports out of Oslo put the crowd north of 100,000 people lining Karl Johans gate, the team getting a royal audience with King Harald before the open-top bus parade even started, and a scene so chaotic that police escorts reportedly had to force the bus to reverse at one point just to get through the mob. This is a team that got bounced in the quarterfinals throwing a celebration that would embarrass most title winners.
That's the part Barstool can't get over, and honestly neither can we. Pardon My Take flagged the same absurdity from a different angle, zooming in on the sheer size of the crowd that showed up just to watch a bus full of guys who lost drive by with some beers in hand.
Aerial broadcast footage of the crowd swallowing the parade route whole.
Context matters here. This wasn't some participation-trophy run — Norway knocked off Brazil in the round of 16 behind a Haaland brace before England finally ended it. For a country that's more used to watching World Cups from the couch, a quarterfinal appearance with Erling Haaland leading the line is the biggest thing that's happened to Norwegian soccer in a generation. The parade wasn't really about the scoreline. It was about a nation that finally had a team worth losing sleep over.
And then there's Haaland himself, who left the royal reception early and still somehow ended up as the main character of the internet's version of the celebration. Barstool's take on him wasn't about anything he did on the pitch — it was a joke about a clip of him off-duty, partying with what looks like a raccoon and a rabbit on a bathroom counter, chaos that reads less "Norwegian superstar" and more "American frat house."
The bit that got Barstool calling Haaland an honorary American.
None of it changes the result. England's moving on, Norway's out, and the quarterfinals are officially the ceiling on this run for now. But if the reaction back home is any indication, Norway found something bigger than a trophy this summer — a team, and a country, that showed up 100,000 deep for a loss. Not many programs get that kind of love after a win, let alone an exit.