Erling Haaland

Erling Braut Haaland (né Håland; Urban East Norwegian: [ˈhòːlɑn]; born 21 July 2000) is a Norwegian professional footballer who plays as a striker for Premier League club Manchester City and the Norway national team. Considered one of the best players in the world, and the greatest Norwegian player ever, he is known for his speed, strength, positioning, and finishing inside the box.

Haaland began his senior career with Bryne and Molde before signing with Red Bull Salzburg in 2019, where he won the Austrian Bundesliga and Austrian Cup. He joined Bundesliga club Borussia Dortmund in 2020, where he won the DFB-Pokal in 2021. In 2022, Haaland transferred to Manchester City for a fee of €60 million (£51.2 million) and won the continental treble in his debut campaign: he set the record for most goals scored by a player in a Premier League season (36) and most goals by a Premier League player in all competitions in one season (52), winning the Premier League Golden Boot, European Golden Shoe and the Gerd Müller Trophy. He was named UEFA Men's Player of the Year, IFFHS World's Best Player, and finished runner-up in the Ballon d'Or. Haaland ranks as Manchester City's seventh-highest all-time top goalscorer.

Haaland has won several individual awards and holds numerous records: he is the only player to win Premier League Young Player and Player of the Season in one season. He won the 2020 Golden Boy, was named Bundesliga Player of the Season in 2021, and was included in the FIFA FIFPro World11 for 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024. He has scored the most goals in a Premier League season and is the quickest player to score eight hat-tricks.

Haaland represented Norway at youth level, winning the Golden Boot at the 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup, where he scored a record nine goals in a single match. He made his senior international debut for Norway in 2019, and has since scored 55 goals in 48 appearances, making him Norway's all-time top goalscorer.

Early life

Erling Braut Haaland was born Erling Braut Håland on 21 July 2000 in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, as his father Alfie Haaland was playing for Leeds United in the Premier League at the time. As a result, Haaland stated that he grew up as a supporter of Leeds United. In 2004, at the age of three, he moved to Bryne, his parents' hometown in Norway.

Along with playing football from an early age, Haaland took part in various other sports as a child, including handball, golf, and track and field. He also reportedly achieved a world record in his age category for the standing long jump when he was five, with a recorded distance of 1.63 metres in 2006.

Club career

Bryne

Haaland started in the academy of his hometown club Bryne at the age of five.

During the 2015 and 2016 seasons, Haaland played for Bryne 2 (Bryne's reserve team) in the Norwegian fourth tier and impressed, scoring 18 goals in 14 matches. He debuted for Bryne 2 on 5 October 2015 in the Group 6 of the 2015 fourth division in a 1–0 home loss against Start reserves and five days later he scored his first goal on senior level against Hei in a 2–1 defeat away to Heistad. The following season he appeared more often in the Bryne 2 squad and he scored his first career hat-trick on 19 September 2016, aged 16 and 2 months, in an away 5–3 win over Vard Haugesund 2 in the Group 6 of the Norwegian fourth tier.

In May 2016, Gaute Larsen was sacked as Bryne manager, and youth coach Berntsen was promoted to caretaker manager. Having worked closely with Haaland in other youth teams, the interim manager handed the teenager his first start, three months before his 16th birthday. His first game with Bryne FK was a second-tier 1. divisjon match against Ranheim on 12 May.

After having initially being deployed as a winger, Berntsen put Haaland in his favoured central role as a striker after a few matches. Although he failed to score in his breakthrough season at Bryne, Haaland was offered a trial by German club TSG Hoffenheim before eventually moving to Molde to play under Ole Gunnar Solskjær. Haaland made 16 total senior appearances for Bryne.

Molde

On 1 February 2017, Molde announced the signing of 16-year-old Haaland. He made his debut for the club on 26 April in a Norwegian Cup match against Volda TI, scoring on his debut in a 3–2 win. Haaland's debut in the Eliteserien came on 4 June, being brought on as a 71st-minute substitute against Sarpsborg 08 and receiving a yellow card in just over a minute of play on the pitch. On 6 August 2017, Haaland scored the winner for Molde in the 77th minute against Tromsø IL, his first goal in the league. His second strike of the season came on 17 September, as he bagged the decisive goal against Viking FK in a 3–2 victory. In the aftermath of the game, Haaland received criticism from teammate Björn Bergmann Sigurðarson for celebrating his goal towards Viking supporters. Haaland finished his first season at Molde with four goals in 20 appearances.

On 1 July 2018, Haaland scored four goals in the opening 21 minutes against Brann, securing his team a 4–0 victory over the unbeaten league leaders at the time. After the match, Molde manager Ole Gunnar Solskjær compared Haaland's style of play to Belgian forward Romelu Lukaku, and said the club had rejected several bids for the striker from different clubs. In the following match a week later, Haaland continued his scoring run with a brace against Vålerenga in a 5–1 win. He scored his first goal in UEFA competition on 26 July, converting a penalty in Molde's 3–0 Europa League qualifying victory against KF Laçi. Due to a sprained ankle, Haaland did not participate in Molde's last three league matches of the season. For his performances in the 2018 Eliteserien, Haaland received the Eliteserien Breakthrough of the Year award. He finished the 2018 season as Molde's top goalscorer, scoring 16 goals in 30 matches across all competitions.

Red Bull Salzburg

On 19 August 2018, Austrian Bundesliga champions Red Bull Salzburg announced that Haaland would join the club on 1 January 2019, signing a five-year contract. The Athletic's Phil Hay would later reveal that prior to his move to Salzburg, Haaland was also subject of an offer from his father's former club Leeds United. He made his debut for the club on 17 February, the 2018–19 Austrian Cup quarter-finals against Wiener Neustädter, and scored his first goal on 12 May in the Austrian Bundesliga 2–1 win over LASK.

On 19 July, he scored his first hat-trick for the club in a 7–1 Austrian Cup win against SC-ESV Parndorf, and followed this up with his first hat-trick in the league on 10 August, scoring three in a 5–2 victory against Wolfsberger AC. He got a third hat-trick for Salzburg on 14 September in a 7–2 victory over TSV Hartberg; this was the sixth consecutive league game Haaland had scored in, with 11 total goals. Three days later, Haaland made his debut in the UEFA Champions League against Genk, where he scored three goals in the first half of an eventual 6–2 victory, his fourth overall hat-trick for Salzburg, becoming the only player to score a first-half hat-trick on competition debut.

In his next two matches of the Champions League season, Haaland recorded a goal against Liverpool at Anfield and a further two against Napoli, becoming only the second teenager after Karim Benzema in the history of the competition to score in each of his first three appearances. His six goals were also the most scored by any player in their first three Champions League matches. After converting a penalty in Salzburg's reverse fixture against Napoli, Haaland became the first teenager to score in his first four matches in the competition, and only the fourth player of any age to achieve this feat, following Zé Carlos, Alessandro Del Piero and Diego Costa. He then scored all three goals in Salzburg's 3–0 victory at Wolfsberger AC on 10 November, recording his fifth hat-trick of the season and his second against the club.

On 27 November, Haaland came off the bench to score another goal against Genk, joining Del Piero, Serhiy Rebrov, Neymar, Cristiano Ronaldo and Robert Lewandowski as the only players to score in the first five matches of a Champions League group stage, and becoming the first teenager to score in five consecutive matches in the competition. However, he would fail to find the net in Salzburg's final group match against Liverpool, as his team lost 2–0 and were eliminated from the competition. This would prove to be Haaland's final game for the club; he departed Salzburg having recorded 29 goals, with 28 of these coming in only 22 appearances made during the 2019–20 season.

Borussia Dortmund

2019–20: Debut season

Despite being a reported target of Manchester United and Juventus, Bundesliga club Borussia Dortmund confirmed the signing of Haaland on 29 December 2019, three days before the winter transfer window opened, for a fee reported to be in the region of €20 million, signing a four-and-a-half-year contract.