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Norway striker Erling Haaland updated his Instagram to reveal he’s cut off his trademark long hair. Following his “Short hair don’t care” post, a thread on 5ch’s Geinosupo Sokuho+ board lit up with reactions to the new look, including “It suits him” and “He’s lost that monster-like aura.”
Norway’s “monster striker” Erling Haaland (25), who helped his country reach the World Cup quarterfinals for the first time at the FIFA World Cup in North/Central America, updated his Instagram on the 23rd to reveal he’d chopped off his trademark long hair.
Haaland captioned the post “Short hair don’t care,” showing off his new close-cropped style, trimmed short with clippers.
Fans reacted with comments like “Nice!” and “It suits him,” while others expressed regret, saying “I can’t believe this day actually came.”
Source: sponichi.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Fixing those up would probably make things better
That's an awkward in-between length, like a botched attempt at going bald
A bit longer would look better
That unique vibe is gone
but wait, didn't he have a stake in a hair-tie company?
Guys with faces like his are probably why idiots go get filler injections lol
That topknot he had was as bad as Bale's
Yeah, he's lost that medieval-fantasy-knight look too
hair transplants and plastic surgery are all the rage, which is a bit much
but this one's actually funny
Can't believe he got rid of his trademark look
Did his deal with the hair-tie company fall through?
or turn things around for the better
Unrelated, but I kind of want Kubo (Takefusa Kubo, the Japanese footballer) to switch things up too — go skinhead with a beard or something
He's wasting his career there
it just doesn't quite feel like "Haaland," if that makes sense
Lol it kind of does look like him
Nordic people have some Sami ancestry mixed in
Background and Key Points
Erling Haaland’s nickname among Japanese fans, “kaibutsu” (monster), long predates this thread — it stuck because his combination of size, speed, and finishing looked physically abnormal even by elite-striker standards, and the long blond hair became part of that visual myth-making, giving him a Viking-warrior silhouette that Norwegian and international media leaned into for years. The board here, Geinosupo Sokuho+, is 5ch’s celebrity/entertainment-news board, which explains why a haircut alone generated 90-plus replies: it’s a board built around image and persona, not football tactics, so reactions default to appearance and vibes rather than performance analysis. The Norway detail in the lead — a first-ever World Cup quarterfinal — is worth flagging as background context: Norway has one of the more famously unfulfilled fanbases in European football, having missed multiple tournaments outright over the past two decades despite Haaland’s individual dominance, so this run is a genuine national milestone, even though the thread barely touches it.
The actual split in the thread is narrower than “like it or hate it”: most posters agree the short cut is objectively “cleaner” or more flattering, but disagree on whether that’s a compliment, since several (37, 63, 83) argue it costs him the intimidating, almost mythical aura the long hair provided — flattering and diminished aren’t treated as contradictions here.
What outside readers will likely miss is the running joke about a hair-tie company (23, 56, 76): several posters are ribbing him for reportedly having a business or sponsorship stake in hair accessories, treating the haircut as comedic bad timing for that deal rather than anything Instagram-caption-worthy.
*This article is an excerpt and summary based on the 5ch (Geinosupo Sokuho+) thread “[Football] “Monster” Haaland chops off his trademark long hair! Fans flood in over his new look.”
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