How Erling Haaland made me a better illustrator…

World Cup Norway Soccer Star Erling Haaland Meditates after scoring a goal.

I never expected Erling Haaland, the Norwegian Viking cyborg to make me a better illustrator.

But during this World Cup, he’s become one of my biggest creative inspirations.

Watching him play, I realized something:

The goals aren’t the magic… the training is.

One Haaland quote really stuck with me:

“Don’t think about goals, think about winning.”

As an illustrator, I hear that as:

Don’t chase likes. Don’t chase awards. Chase better work.

So here are five Haaland lessons I’m stealing for my creative practice:

1. Train when nobody’s watching. Personal projects are creative gym sessions.

2. Practice your weaknesses. If a drawing flops, that’s tomorrow’s warm-up.

3. Forget the last miss. Bad sketch? Cool. Draw the next one.

4. Master the fundamentals. Great work is built on thousands of simple reps.

5. Stay hungry, but have fun. Work hard. Laugh often. Make weird stuff and scare yourself when you look in the mirror. 😂

As artists, we’re not trying to score goals… we’re trying to create work that makes people feel something.

Turns out, the path to both is surprisingly similar.

Now if you’ll excuse me… I have a sketchbook, a cup of coffee, and approximately 10,000 terrible drawings standing between me and the next good one. “Stay humble eh?”

Thanks to Erling Haaland, I was inspired to create this World Cup 2026 Poster Design with a host of soccer stars including Leo Messi, Harry Kane, Christian Pulisic, Ronaldo, Raphinha, Mbappe, and Lamine Yamal.