By William Schomberg
BOSTON, June 14 (Reuters) - Human goal machine Erling Haaland will seek to get his World Cup account up and running immediately when Norway take on Iraq on Tuesday to end the country's nearly three-decade absence from football's elite tournament.
The giant, rampaging centre forward netted 16 times in Norway's eight World Cup qualifying games and racked up an unmatched 27 Premier League goals for Manchester City last season.
Backed by an exciting roster of teammates including Arsenal
playmaker Martin Odegaard and wingers Antonio Nusa and Oscar Bobb, Haaland wants to bolster his chances of picking up FIFA's Golden Boot award against an Iraq side playing at the World Cup for the first time in 40 years.
Haaland will come face to face with possibly his most likely challenger for that accolade - Kylian Mbappe - when Norway face France in their final Group I game on June 26.
Before then, Iraq and Senegal await with Tuesday's encounter with the Lions of Mesopotamia in Boston representing Norway's first match at a World Cup since 1998, when they lost to Italy in the round of 16.
That defeat was followed by a spectacular fall from grace for a team that had peaked as the world's second best in FIFA's rankings earlier in the 1990s.
Now, having scored the most goals of any European team during the World Cup qualifiers - Haaland's partner in attack Alexander Sorloth bagged five and Thelo Aasgaard got four - Norway could challenge France for top spot in Group I.
Standing in their way on Tuesday are an Iraq side whose route to Boston was via an exhausting 21-match qualifying campaign that - despite travel disruption caused by the U.S. and Israeli war with neighbouring Iran - ended with victory over Bolivia in the intercontinental playoffs in Mexico.
Iraq coach Graham Arnold led his native Australia to the round of 16 at the last World Cup in Qatar where they were defeated by eventual champions Argentina.
Striker Aymen Hussein, who scored the goal that qualified Iraq for the finals, will be seeking to steal some of Haaland's limelight.
As well as containing the threat posed by the big Norwegian, Iraq will have to keep their emotions in check after some recent red cards, including one in their final warm-up game - a 2-0 defeat by Venezuela - when forward Ali Youssef was shown a straight red card.
(Writing by William Schomberg; Editing by Toby Chopra)
