erling braut haaland

for me, lately he's become a great figure not just for his football but for his character and the way he is off the pitch too. whether it's his facial expressions or the way he sweetly needles opponents now and then, he adds a nice splash of color to the game. for a player this lethal on the pitch, both physically and as a goalscorer, to have a funny, likable side and to show it comes across as pretty endearing.

because he's got a monster of a physique, he probably sticks in people's minds as a predatory player, but he's really a very smart footballer too. even though he's still very young, his knack for being in the right place at the right time is incredible. if you take a look at the goals he scores, on a lot of them you'd end up praising the guy who made the assist, thinking what a nice tap-in he set up, when in reality haaland makes such flawless off-the-ball runs that he locks the defense up completely. defenders are left undecided whether to go at the man on the ball or mark haaland. he makes it nearly impossible, almost every single time, for an easy help defense to be made on the man on the ball, he times those distances beautifully. that's something you can chalk up to both instinct and a real footballing brain.

i actually find his career with the norway national team even more remarkable than his club career, and i put it above it. they increased the number of teams in the tournaments and all that, but these guys play pretty good football, along with the confidence haaland gives them. it's not like they have bad players either, in fact there are a lot of underrated guys in the squad, but for years the elite center forwards of irrelevant countries have always had their national team careers excused just because their national teams were bad. this guy leads a pretty top-tier team without making excuses for anything, and that deserves huge praise too.

i don't think he'll stick around very long at city, i figure he'll leave within a year or two. this guy won't end his career without doing a stint in spain and at some point italy too. it's been known for a while that he has that kind of desire in general. we'd have liked to watch him as barça's center forward instead of real, one way or another, so we'll see..