Erling Haaland Lookalike Anastasia Kostromitina Goes Viral, Even Haaland Can’t Ignore The Buzz

Somewhere in Moscow, a woman who admittedly could not care less about football has managed to hijack the internet's attention during football's biggest month. Anastasia Kostromitina , a 24 year old model with the Moscow based MOTION agency, has become the unofficial female face of Erling Haaland , and unlike most doppelganger stories, this one has receipts, views and a cameo from the man himself.

It began, as these things often do, with a mother who clearly has main character energy of her own. Mariya Kostromitina , a Russian lifestyle influencer, posted a cheeky Instagram reel of her daughter recreating Haaland's trademark stare and goal celebrations, timed suspiciously well with his brace against Brazil . That clip alone pulled in over four million views. Copycat versions exploded further, and Anastasia's own page has now crossed 110 million views on a single video, catapulting a modestly followed fashion account into six figure territory almost overnight.

Speaking to Reuters in Moscow on Friday, Kostromitina admitted the comparisons are nothing new, they started roughly four years ago, and she did not take them gracefully. She went through, in her own words, all the stages of denial before landing somewhere between mildly offended and eventually amused. She has since leaned all the way in, even joking to followers that she had scored two goals of her own, for the new followers, thanks to Erling.

The internet, naturally, could not resist. Comment sections filled up with theories ranging from separated at birth to shared Viking ancestry, earning the pair the nickname Haalandina . And then, in the plot twist every publicist dreams of, Haaland himself waded in, reacting to the comparison on his own Instagram with a cheeky comment of his own, effectively co-signing the meme that has been made at his expense.

The timing could not be scripted better. Haaland enters this stretch of the FIFA World Cup 2026 among the tournament's joint top scorers with seven goals, having fired Norway into the quarter finals for the first time in the country's history, with England waiting next. Kostromitina, for her part, has modeled for names like Clarins , Dyson and Uniqlo , but nothing in her portfolio has moved the needle quite like accidentally resembling a 6 foot 5 Manchester City striker in mid tournament form.