"When I go home, I relax even more" — Erling Haaland said that about fatherhood in October 2025, and it turned out to be one of the more revealing quotes of his World Cup run. He's played some of the best football of his career in the United States this summer. Norway went further than anyone expected. And then England knocked them out 2-1 in the quarterfinals on Saturday, July 11.
Hours before that match, his girlfriend Isabel Haugseng Johansen had news of her own. She appeared on the cover of Elle, with the magazine sharing an exclusive interview from Miami timed to the quarterfinal. Over a million Instagram followers watched it land. Not bad timing — though the result that followed was not the ending either of them would have wanted.
A family that grew up together
Haaland and Johansen go back further than most celebrity couples. They grew up in the same Norwegian town of Bryne, became a couple in 2021, and had a son together in December 2024. That son, by Haaland's own account, has made him a better footballer.
"You can be physically ready but you need to be mentally ready as well," he told the Associated Press last October. "And to be honest, with a kid, it makes me even better because I actually disconnect more than ever."
He credited his son directly: "I don't think of football at all... I think I need to give a shout-out to my son." Coming from a player who's spent his entire career being accused of thinking about nothing but goals, that's a real shift.
Norway's tournament in context
A quarterfinal exit stings, but Norway reaching that stage at a World Cup is not a small thing. Haaland carried them there almost single-handedly at times, and anyone tracking Norway's outright odds from the start of the tournament would have cashed out well before this point.
England hold on to their semifinal place. Norway go home. And Haaland returns to a family life he says, genuinely, he's learned to enjoy.
