After overcoming an impressive DR Congo, and then producing a remarkable performance to beat Mexico at Estadio Azteca with 10 men, one of football’s ultimate tactical tests awaits England in the World Cup quarter-finals: can they stop Erling Haaland?The Manchester City striker has scored in each of his past 14 competitive international appearances for Norway and has seven goals at this tournament. Only Argentina’s Lionel Messi is ahead of him in the Golden Boot race.Haaland netted twice in the round of 16 elimination of Brazil, including his fourth winning goal of the finals.Head coach Stale Solbakken, in charge since December 2020, has crafted this team and their 4-3-3 shape around Haaland.He has picked athletic full-backs to maximise crossing scenarios, and they are deliberately lop-sided. Either Antonio Nusa or Andreas Schjelderup play off the left as a dribbly winger, while 6ft 5in (196cm) Alexander Sorloth is a target man on the opposite side. For almost any other nation, Sorloth would be the starting striker in the Haaland mould.“The other players know that Erling is our biggest match-winner and that we have to make sure that we put him in the right areas so he can score goals and be dangerous,” Solbakken told FIFA.com last September, midway through qualifying.Here is the five-point tactical plan to lock down Haaland and how England can beat Norway in Miami on Saturday.Shut down the supplyThere is quality throughout this Norway team. The number of players they have in Europe’s top five domestic leagues has been steadily rising in recent years since a nadir in the 2010s. Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard is chief creator at No 8, often dropping deep to get on the ball. Full-backs Julian Ryerson and David Moller Wolfe, who play for Borussia Dortmund and Wolverhampton Wanderers respectively, bring pace and runs in-behind.The wings are where Norway do their best work.Wolfe assisted the opener for Haaland against Iraq in their opening match of the group stage, providing a low cross after getting on the overlap. Even more frequent are his underlaps, which tend to be a decoy to take a defender away and prevent a double team on the left winger — either Nusa or Schjelderup.That pattern played out for what proved Haaland’s winner against Brazil, attracting centre-back Marquinhos out of the centre of the box. Moller Wolfe created space for Schjelderup’s cross, and luring Marquinhos wider left Haaland one-v-one against his old chum Gabriel of Arsenal.Norway have three goals from six back-post chances in this tournament.This means that England’s right-side pairing needs to be defensively diligent on Saturday. Opting for Bukayo Saka as the right-winger would be sensible, given his experience of playing full-back, to track Moller Wolfe’s underlaps or help double-team him.Then it’s a coin flip between Djed Spence and Ezri Konsa for right-back. Spence would provide pace and one-v-one defending, while Konsa is better aerially and having an extra centre-back on the pitch against crosses might be equally valuable.Just over two-thirds of Norway’s shots this tournament are first-time efforts, with only the Czech Republic (73.5 per cent) higher than that. Seventeen of Haaland’s 18 goal attempts have been one-touch — he’s prolific and, even in the matches when he sees little of the ball, his finishing is ruthless.Across the past two seasons, he has scored with his first shot in 16 matches.Defend him aggressivelyHaaland can be stopped. It happens rarely at club level: only five times for Manchester City, in all competitions since he joined in 2022, has he played at least an hour in a game and not recorded a shot. Twice this year though, in friendly draws with Switzerland and Morocco, he has drawn blanks in a Norway shirt.