Erling Haaland: Pep Guardiola’s latest muse is bringing master tactician out of Lionel Messi’s shadow

The movement is so slick that Erling Haaland seems almost automatic, a machine whirring to life. He does not need to pause or ponder. He always seems to know where the ball would come, how it would come, where he needs to run, how he should run, when he needs to run, and where he needs to shoot, as though everything is programmed, as though his coach Pep Guardiola needs to press the buttons of Playstation, hidden somewhere under his turtle neck tees. Haaland doesn’t waste, doesn’t fuss, and scores goals as if it were the simplest thing in the world, to such an extent that he is demystifying the often complex art of scoring a goal.

The most frightening proposition for defenders this season is that he has never looked as emphatic as he did in the first three games, delivering a consummate exhibition of finishing and movement. The first year was about both the man and the club understanding each other and devising a path that enhances each other. Of Guardiola making City more direct and Haaland embracing defensive duties; still he racked up 52 goals in 53 games.

The sophomore season was about niggles, fatigue and teams designing plans to nullify him; still he belted 38 goals in 45 games. Guardiola admitted as much in the post-match press conference last week: “After the (2022-23) treble, he struggled to handle it, and maybe not too many holidays, remember at the beginning he said, ‘Still I’m tired, still I am a little bit drained’.”

The mental and physical intensity of the season of the treble took its inevitable toll on the Norwegian phenom.

Manchester City’s Erling Haaland celebrates scoring their first goal. (Reuters)

To rediscover himself, Haaland went on a Euro trip during the European Championship. He partied with friends in the Spanish town of Marbella, jet-skied at Cannes, soaked the sunshine in the Italian coastline of Capri, trekked a forest trail near his hometown in Bryne, and found some time to stroll the art galleries of Paris too. He returned revitalised. “I had a long vacation and a long pre-season so I’m feeling good,” he said after the West Ham game. “The years I’ve been here have been really quick: bam-bam-bam, but now I’ve got a little rest in my body and in my feet so I feel really good now. I’m ready for more.”

The numbers are bewildering. In three games, he has already netted seven goals, including a brace of hat-tricks. Only six have ever managed this feat in the league, and of them, only a pair has scored back-to-back hat-tricks more than once in their career. Harry Kane and Haaland.

In the hat-trick tally, he has already surpassed some of the finest in the game. It took Arsenal legend Thierry Henry 258 games to pile eight hat-tricks; Haaland has taken only 69 for his eight. It is ridiculously foreseeable that he would break Sergio Aguero’s record haul of 12 (in 275 games) in little time (at this rate of one goal with every seventh touch, perhaps by the end of this season itself). It’s safe to assume that in a few years’ time, he would have owned all of the league’s scoring records and compiled a statistical heap that could prove humanly unscalable.

Constant evolution

And he is not merely scoring goals. Against West Ham, he was aggressively pressing, energetically tracking back, and shrewdly hatching chances for colleagues. He swept back to thwart a West Ham counter, stretching full pelt to snatch the ball back; he delivered a sumptuous through ball to Rico Lewis, which the full-back gloriously missed. Haaland touched the ball only 22 times, but his mere presence was enough to shake West Ham’s convictions.

Manchester City’s Erling Haaland celebrates scoring their third goal. (Reuters)

At the end, Guardiola was as pleased with his hat-trick as with his work rate. “I like when he runs a lot. I like when he presses like an animal. I like it. It helps to score a goal. When you are connected defensively, you are connected offensively. When you are disconnected defensively and you run and the ball surprises you, you are not precise,” he said.

It was an aspect of the game that Guardiola put subtly across in the preseason. “We talked a little bit in the States. I didn’t like some things and he changed his mind. His body language has been amazing this season,” the Catalan would say.

But the harder Guardiola is trying to mould Haaland in his ethos, the deeper Haaland seems to influence Guardiola’s ideas. That is one of the telling paradoxes. In an age when classical strikers were fairly abundant, Guardiola reshaped Lionel Messi as the greatest false nine in the game’s history. Years later, when false nines were all one could find on a team sheet, he restored the classical but dwindling tribe of true nines by unleashing Haaland. His latest City avatar is an antithesis to his great Barcelona sides. The triangles and patient build-up plays are but a remnant of Guardiola’s youthful past; straight lines and directness are his new polestars.

The Norwegian and the Argentine stand at either pole of the Spaniard’s fascinating evolution as a manager. While one has retreated into the sunset, the other is blazing like the forenoon sun, its sunniest peaks yet to arrive. Perhaps, the greatest legacy of Haaland is that he shook the ideals that shaped Guardiola the manager. He is in the middle of de-Messifying Guardiola and Haalandising him. And in the process, demystifying the complex art of scoring goals.

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