His hometown of Haaland pays tribute to ‘the little boy who grew up to be a great Viking’ | Erling Haaland

SSurrounded by red hats, 9 shirts and Erling Haaland toys in her textile shop in the small Norwegian town of Bryne, Olinda Haaland – no relation but proud to share the now world-famous name – said everyone in the striker’s hometown loved football these days.

“It was a joy,” he said of his rise to the top of world football. “We all love him so much and he does so much for Bryne.”

Haaland’s store faces Bryne’s central square, where hundreds of people will gather on Saturday to watch the outdoor broadcast of Norway’s World Cup quarter-final match against England.

As he speaks, dozens of people come in looking for Haaland shirts, having decided that now is the time to commit. Retro World Cup shirts from 1998, the last time Norway won, sold out in two days. Now anything red will do, she said.

Although he was born in Leeds, where his father, Alf-Inge Haaland, played for Leeds United, it was Bryne, a small farming town in southern Norway near Stavanger, where Haaland grew up and trained to become the footballer he is today.

The 6ft 4in (1.95 metre) Manchester City striker, who has scored 62 goals in 54 international games, still makes regular appearances at his old favorite spots in the city. He also donates football kits to children here and organizes scholarship competitions. In the autumn, a rare 16th century book of Viking sagas bought by Haaland will arrive at the local library.

When he skated by Olinda’s shop, Andreas Volluund, the mayor of the city and a former teacher of Haaland, said that the 25-year-old student had a great impact on the city.

“We are proud of the little boy who has grown into a great Viking,” said Vollusund, who – naturally – was wearing a Haaland shirt. Now Bryne is the capital of Norway, not Oslo. When he talks about his hometown, you can see in his eyes that he loves his hometown and that makes us really happy and proud of him.

Vollusund, who taught Haaland when he was 10 and who knows his father well, said that when he was young he was “funny, he liked to joke with others, a lot of energy, he liked sports, he liked football. When he was 10 years old he said he would be a football player when he grew up. He was very focused.

Vollusund highlighted Bryne’s down-to-earth culture, hard work and traits Haaland inherited from her parents (her mother was a national heptathlon champion) as two factors that contributed to her success.

“We have a tradition of having fun with our children, we have worked hard,” he said. “We come from a place in Norway where our feet are on the ground. Farms, he works hard … and he has good genes from his mother and father.”

The Norwegian focus on young children’s enjoyment of sport has played a major role in developing the talent of world-class athletes across many sports, including football, handball, athletics, chess, skiing and golf.

After all, one of the small weaknesses of Haaland’s sport is chess, according to Kjell Madland, who runs Norway Chess, based in nearby Sandnes, where Haaland has invested. “I don’t think he’s very good, but he likes to play,” he said.

On Saturday, the mayor will be serving 3,000 hotdogs to children and families at a beer tasting event at the Bryne football field. “We are doing everything possible to make this event big, big,” he said.

Haaland has a big influence on young people in the city, says Vollusund. “Everybody looks up to him. He showed that you can come from a small town like Bryne and be the best player in the world. If you’re a girl or a boy, you can see that you can be a football player.”

Gabriel Høyland, Erling Haaland’s uncle, said he thought Saturday’s game, which he planned to watch from his home on a farm outside Bryne, was “very open”, adding: “I can’t wait for the game to start and get it out there.” Norway and Haaland’s World Cup tour is “absolutely amazing” he said. “We’ve never experienced this kind of wind.”

Posing in front of the Haaland mural in the city center on Friday were 10-year-old Emilian and his brother Leander, seven, who were on holiday with their family from Oslo. “We are going to the stadium to see where it all started,” said his mother, Chantal Samsing. Their father, Christopher Gundersen, said: “It’s bigger than football, the whole country comes together, it has a big impact.”

At the Bryne FK stadium up the road, Alf Ingve Berntsen, who started coaching Haaland at the age of eight, said Haaland’s passion and incredible skill was evident from the start. “He was exactly the same as he is now. He was funny, smiling, scoring a lot of goals. At that level you can see it’s burning. It’s fire, it’s enthusiasm.”

Social media has divided many Norwegians, says Berntsen, but the World Cup has had the opposite effect. “It brought a kind of unity. Not just to Bryne but to all of Norway. It’s amazing.”