Video of Norway's Erling Haaland startling himself is digitally altered
- Published on July 6, 2026 at 08:33
- 3 min read
- By Livia LIU, AFP Hong Kong
As Norway's totemic striker Erling Haaland guided his country into the latter stages of the 2026 World Cup, a doctored video appearing to show him being startled by his own reflection was viewed millions of times on Chinese social media. AFP found the clip -- which contains visual inconsistencies typical of synthetic content -- had been altered from a skit posted by a Chinese content creator.
"There's a reason why centre‑backs are afraid of Haaland... Bro, even he gives himself a fright when he looks in the mirror!" says the simplified Chinese caption of an X video shared on June 30, 2026.
The video, posted by an X user with more than 150,000 followers, appears to show Haaland eating at a table when he is startled by his own reflection.
The same video also spread in Chinese Weibo, Douyin and RedNote posts, and was viewed tens of thousands of times after being shared in other languages in similar X posts.
The simplified Chinese hashtag "Haaland scared by his own reflection while eating" ranked top of the Weibo trending list on June 29, with posts containing the hashtag accumulating more than two million views (archived link).
The video circulated as the prolific Norwegian striker -- hailed as world's best goalscorer by his national team coach -- guided the country into a first-ever World Cup quarter-final (archived link).
The Manchester City forward's scoring exploits have netted him a huge following on Chinese social media, where he gained over 4.5 million followers just weeks after launching his Douyin account on June 6 (archived link). A recent advertisement for a Chinese herbal tea brand, in which Haaland speaks Mandarin, received over 95,700 likes on Instagram, and the hashtag associated with the campaign generated over 230 million views on Weibo (archived here and here).
Social media users have embraced him with a wave of memes, playing on the contrast between his imposing physical stature and his light-hearted personality (archived link).
The circulating video, however, was manipulated with the help of AI.
Face-swapped clip
A closer look at the falsely shared video found it contains visual errors that indicate it was altered with AI.
The outline of his right ear appears inconsistent with its actual shape, and the sleeve sponsor of his kit is also incorrect (archived link).
The Verification Plugin, also known as InVID-WeVerify and co-developed by AFP, found strong evidence suggesting the video contains an "AI manipulated" face (archived link).
A comment on one post sharing the falsely shared video included a screenshot of a similar clip, which the commenter said was the original video (archived link).
A subsequent keyword search led to the original video posted by Douyin user "Xiaosi" on June 15 (archived link).
The caption reads: "The person in the mirror looks so familiar."
The Douyin account is registered in China's Shandong province, and is run by a content creator who regularly posts humorous skits (archived link).
He told AFP that the video is his. When asked whether he knew his video was edited, he replied, "I am not aware of this," adding that he only runs accounts on Douyin, Kuaishou and WeChat Channels.
AFP has previously debunked other false claims related to the 2026 World Cup that have relied on AI‑generated images.
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