Overview

• Norway sit top of Group I on 15 points from five matches, six ahead of second-place Italy, which has played one fewer game.
• Group winners earn automatic 2026 World Cup berths while runners-up face playoffs, a pivotal path for Norway seeking a first finals since 1998.
• Erling Haaland’s five-goal haul raised his international tally to 48 in 45 caps and marked the most by a European man in a World Cup qualifier since 1977, giving him nine in this campaign.
• Substitute Thelo Aasgaard scored four after coming on in the 64th minute, with Felix Horn Myhre and Martin Ødegaard also on target as Leo Østigård’s own goal provided Moldova’s lone score.
• Haaland played with facial stitches from a bus-door incident reported two days earlier, while Moldova remain bottom with zero points and 25 goals conceded in five qualifiers.