Having opened his World Cup scoring account against Tunisia a week ago, Viktor Gyökeres is now tasked with being the Bane of the Dutch in Houston, where Sweden fans will hope to see the striker’s eye-catching celebration once more.

Tunisia meet the mask in World Cup walloping

In Sweden’s 5-1 thumping of the Tunisians last Sunday, Gyökeres netted for the 21st time in 34 internationals, lashing in Alexander Isak’s 59th-minute layoff to score the Scandinavians’ third goal of the night. What followed was a now-familiar routine.

Having despatched the ball past Tunisia goalkeeper Abdelmouhib Chamakh, the Arsenal striker ran over to Sweden fans inside Monterrey’s Estadio BBVA, before interlocking his fingers and placing his hands over his mouth in a mask-like manner.

“Nobody cared until I put on the mask”

Over the past four years, it has become a signature move for Gyökeres, whose 14 top-flight goals this term helped Arsenal to the Premier League title, in his first season with the Gunners. He also pulled out the celebration regularly at Sporting CP, where he hit 97 goals in 102 games, and in a two-year spell at Coventry City, where he netted 40 times before moving to Portugal in 2023.

Gyökeres hasn’t directly confirmed the inspiration for his ‘mask’ celebration, but has hinted at a reference to the DC Comics character Bane, a supervillain played by Tom Hardy in the 2012 Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises.

In a social-media post in 2024, Gyökeres shared highlights from his time with Sporting CP, including images of his goal celebration. Notably, he added the caption: “Nobody cared until I put on the mask.” That appeared to refer to the line “no one cared who I was ‘till I put on the mask”, uttered by Hardy’s Bane.

In The Dark Knight Rises, Bane sports an unsightly metallic mask that chiefly conceals the bottom half of his face and adds a menacing distortion to his voice.

“No one has been close”

Confusingly, however, Gyökeres was in 2023 quoted as saying that observers who perceive a Batman connection in his celebration are wide of the mark - and significantly so. This would, unless this writer is missing something, suggest he may not be imitating one of the DC superhero’s major antagonists.

After Gyökeres’ ex-Coventry colleague Josh Eccles theorized that the routine might be a nod to Hannibal Lecter, another fictional villain known for his fear-inducing mask, Gyökeres reportedly told Swedish media: “There have been many guesses… It’s been that and Batman and everything, but no one has guessed right.”

He concluded, per Aftonbladet: “No one has been close.”

“Felt even better on the pitch”

Whatever the exact reason for Gyökeres’ goal celebration, the striker has at least shed some light on how it came about. Speaking after his summer 2025 transfer to Arsenal, the Swede stopped short of revealing its inspiration, but said he devised the routine while on a vacation with friends.

“The story behind it is that before I got it, my friends were always saying to me to find my own celebration, because they were very tired of me doing all kinds of stuff when I was celebrating,” Gyökeres told the club’s media team.

“I had some time off and we went on vacation together, me and my friends. During that time, we just came up with it after a while. We thought it looked good, and I started doing it straight away. It felt even better on the pitch.”

Netherlands vs Sweden: kickoff times, how to watch

At the 2026 World Cup, the Netherlands and Sweden face off in Group F today, Saturday, June 20, with kickoff at Houston’s NRG Stadium scheduled for 1:00 p.m. ET/10:00 a.m. PT.

Viewers in the U.S. can watch the game on FOX Network, Telemundo, Telemundo Deportes En Vivo, FOX One and fubo. You can also follow live-text coverage of the game right here at AS USA.

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