Don’t get all hot dog and bothered just yet about all the online claims that Team Norway somehow doesn’t trust American food. There are plausible performance reasons why the Norwegian football team shipped around 1,276 pounds or 580 kilograms of food from its country to its temporary headquarters at Greensboro, North Carolina, for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
And so far, Team Norway—nicknamed the Vikings—has performed quite well in its first appearance in the World Cup—soccer’s premier competition—since 1998. In the group stage, Norway finished second in Group I behind only pre-tournament favorite France and then defeated Ivory Coast 2-1 to advance to the Round of 16 in the knock-out stage where they will face perennial football powerhouse Brazil next on Sunday. Meanwhile, the Viking-esque rowing ritual that Norwegian fans have been performing during and between matches has gone viral.
But, you could say that quite a few people on social media have been getting in a row over what’s being said about Team Norway’s culinary ways. A number of social media posts have been interpreting the team’s piece of ship decision as a supposed diss on the quality of American food. But diss doesn’t seem to be the case if you look at the facts.
Team Norway Has Not Shipped All Of Its Food
One fact is that Team Norway is still consuming food from the U.S. Most of the food that was imported from Norway was fishy in a good way. That’s included 660 pounds or 300 kilograms of Norwegian salmon and trout and 220 pounds or 100 kilograms of halibut, according to Melissa Goldin reporting for the Associated Press. Some of it has been quite cheesy as in 176 pounds or 80 kilograms of Norwegian brown cheese and 220 pounds or 100 kilograms of Jarlsberg cheese. That means Team Norway has still been getting lots of food like fruits, vegetables, grains and other meats from local American sources.
There have been online claims that Team Norway has been bringing in oranges as well. But believing everything that is said online is kind of like believing everything written on the walls of bathroom stalls. The head chef for Team Norway, Aron Espeland, told Goldin that the Vikings have had freshly squeezed orange juice every morning to their liking, squeezed from oranges grown in the U.S.
Norway Isn’t The First Team To Ship In Food For The World Cup
You could say that the Norway of handling food for the World Cup hasn’t been an uncommon way. Just look at what happened at the 2014 FIFA World Cup. When Team Italy boarded their flight to Brazil, they knew that they would have more than a charcuterie board of parmesan cheese, olive oil and prosciutto shipped to them. And Team Mexico brought along some spice, namely the ingredients for pozole, chile peppers, chipotle chiles and nopales. Meanwhile, Team U.S.A. had a stake in the game too, bringing A1 Steak Sauce along with oatmeal, Cheerios and peanut butter.
And all of this wasn’t just about Brazil. Other World Cups in other countries have seen such thought for food. For example, for the 2022 World Cup in Qatarm Argentina and Uruguay tried to meet their needs by shipping around 4,000 pounds of, well, meat there. Such food efforts aren’t limited to football either. The Korean Sport & Olympic Committee sets up dedicated cooking facilities in Milan, Cortina and Livigno for the 2026 Milano-Cortino Winter Olympic Games that ensured a steady flow of rice, kimchi and other Korean food staples.
Team Norway’s Actions Highlight The Role Nutrition Plays In Sports
All of this highlights how much the competitiveness of sports has extended into the kitchen. Athletes and athletic teams across many different levels are using food and nutrition strategies to get whatever edge they can get. Many NCAA Division I athletic programs have established for their student-athletes separate dining tables and halls that serve special “high-performance” menus designed by sports dietitians. This is certainly the case for professional sports teams where the monetary stakes—and steaks—are even higher. And you’ve probably heard of the special diets that many elite pro athletes swear by, some of which is well-grounded in scientific evidence, some of which is not. For example, I covered in Forbes the strict diet that Tom Brady followed when he was quarterbacking the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers and what of it made sense and what made you go hmmm.
There are certainly well-established nutrition principles to optimize sports performance. One is to get plenty of hydration through both what you drink and eat. Another set of principles is get enough complex carbohydrates like sweet potatoes and whole grains for energy, lean proteins like salmon and eggs for muscle repair and healthy fats to help regulate your hormones. Then there’s avoiding foods that may bog you down like ultra-processed ones with lots of additives that you can’t pronounce.
Teams Like Norway Are Trying Re-Create Home Conditions
Of course, good nutrition isn’t the only motivation behind what Norway and other teams may be doing. There’s also regularity—both in the bowel movement sense as well as the general predictability sense. When you consume the same stuff that you consume at home, you already know how your body and mind might respond. New stuff, not so much. Teams may not want to risk their athletes feeling even a little more sluggish, itchy, constipated, diarrhea-ry or whatever.
So for everyone who got offended by Team Norway’s decision to import around 1,276 pounds of food—and not around 2,000 pounds as some are claiming—just chill. In Norwegian, there is a saying, “Å ta det for god fisk,” which means “to take it as good fish” or believe something that someone is saying without questioning its truth. Well, it looks like Team Norway simply wanted some good and familiar fish and cheese.
