The hair-styling expert has been compared to Norwegian soccer player Erling Haaland in thousands of comments since the 2026 FIFA World Cup kicked off in June

NEED TO KNOW

• Content creator Emma Kate Willman has recently received thousands of comments on her social media posts from viewers claiming she looks like Norwegian soccer player Erling Haaland
• While she was initially surprised by the comparison — which was sparked by the 2026 FIFA World Cup — Willman has completely embraced the joke that she’s the athlete’s “twin”
• Days after Haaland engaged and left a comment on her post, Willman tells PEOPLE how the soccer star has changed her content in unexpected ways

Emma Kate Willman made her name on social media by sharing the various ways she styles her braids and ponytails, but recently her blonde hair caught the public’s attention for a different, far less expected reason

After the 2026 FIFA World Cup kicked off earlier this summer, Willman’s comment section started to fill up with viewers claiming she resembles star Norwegian soccer player Erling Haaland. Some people have jokingly called Willman, 24, the “long-lost sister” of the highly ranked striker, and others have simply started addressing her as if she really is Haaland, 25.

“Good performance tonight mate,” one Instagram user wrote in response to one of her videos. Another added, “Your casual run up to the shot for the 2nd goal was insane, good luck against England!”

She initially voiced her playful confusion about the comparison. On July 5, she posted a video joking about how her “best doppelgänger” is a male soccer player. “No offense to Haaland at all, but I am very much just a little girl from Charleston,” Willman quipped.

But the resemblance is heightened by the fact that, like Willman, Haaland also tends to pull back his light hair into braids, especially on the field. Since she started fielding comments comparing the two of them, Willman has gotten in on the fun and recreated some of his signature styles. In one video, she copied his double braids, and she even recreated his signature “Haaland bun” in a post shared on Wednesday, July 8.

Earlier this week, Haaland finally contributed to the conversation when he commented on a French braid tutorial pinned to the top of Willman’s Instagram, where she has over 146,000 followers, thousands of whom found her because of the World Cup craze. Another 414,000 followers have been watching over on Willman’s TikTok page.

Haaland’s note to Willman was simple — “Hi👍🏻,” he commented — yet his participation garnered over 2 million likes, and fans celebrated his acknowledgement of the ongoing comparison.

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In the wake of his engagement, Willman tells PEOPLE that the whole experience has been “so surreal,” and the attention continues to surprise her.

“I never expected braiding my hair to turn into millions of people comparing me to Erling Haaland. It’s been amazing to watch the internet have so much fun with it, and seeing Erling comment on my video made the whole thing feel even more unreal,” says the social media star, who is represented by Dulcedo Management. “As a creator, you never know what’s going to resonate, so I’m just grateful people have embraced it and had fun along the way.”

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Willman will be cheering on Erling from the stands this weekend, when Norway plays England in Miami, so there’s a non-zero chance she might actually meet her “twin” soon. “It would be pretty funny if our paths crossed in real life after all of this,” she adds.

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