Jan 28, 2022
When you think of today's great footballers, Erling Haaland is very much in the conversation. Having burst onto the scene with FC Salzburg, when he made history by becoming the first player to score in five successive Champions League games, the 21-year-old Norwegian centre-forward continued to break records and defy our expectations at Borussia Dortmund, scoring 56 goals in 57 games (in all competitions).
Now we are waiting to see what this remarkable center forward will do next. Real Madrid? Manchester City? Manchester United? Some other place? With the world of soccer at his feet, Haaland sat down to chat with ESPN FC's Jan Aage Fjortoft about soccer, life, the idea of "balance," how he continues to improve his game and where he sees himself in the future.
Editor's Note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and content.
ESPN FC: Most people know you as a scoring machine. You're a Dortmund player, a 21-year-old from Bryne, and you're also a superstar to the point that everyone will have an opinion on anything you say (your body language, interviews). Who do you think you are?
Erling Haaland: Good question. Before I came to Dortmund, I still saw myself as a laid-back guy from Bryne. It's still like that, but arguably in a slightly different way. Things have changed in the last two and a half years since my Champions League debut, and I'm still a very calm guy from Bryne. Sometimes I'm a little crazy, just with different limits.
Tell us about some of your limits.
Like you said, people have an opinion about everything I do. And I have to be a little careful about the things I do, the things I use. Everything in life, basically.
When you say you have to take care of yourself... When people see you, they don't think you have many limits. Come to Erling Haaland.
I try to be myself as much as I can. When there is a camera, you have to be a little careful. So are the things. So that's a limit. But you can see that when I'm on the court, I'm myself all the time.
Do you think about the 14-year-old Haaland running around Bryne, doing what you were doing back then? Is he the same guy who is doing it now on and off the court?
Obviously, I've developed a lot, but if you take just [what I do] on the court, I'm still doing a lot of the same things that he was doing back then. If you watch videos from when I was 14, 15 years old, basically I play with exactly the same themes and do things that I've been doing for a long time.
I have said this before: I did not study, but I have watched many players. Take this example: The run behind center back when number 10 has the ball. [Perhaps one of] the best in the world is Jamie Vardy; I've been looking at it a lot in this aspect. I've watched a lot of football, I still do. When we play a game on Saturday, I go home on Sunday and watch football all day, and that's always been the case.
When there is something you want to develop, you try to find role models or people who do it well (like Vardy). Are there other players you've learned from?
Yes, I watch a lot of [football]... I mean, I always wanted to be a centre-forward because for me it's the best position: to be the one who scores the goals. And that's what I've always wanted to do. I saw him [Robin van Persie] a lot. He was left-handed, so I watched him a lot too. I'm also left-handed, so it was natural to look at it a lot. So yeah, I've watched a lot of centre-forwards.
I don't want to release the 14-year-old Erling just yet, because I think people want to know something that not everyone knows. And I had to check this out, because you are very well known in Norway for being part of a rap band. How old were you? And do you remember what the rap band was called?
Yes, Flow Kingz! I think it was in 2015 or 16… We [Erik Botheim and Erik Tobias Sandberg] were in the national team, I think under 17 or 16, from Norway. And yes, we were good friends. We basically practiced, and then the rest of the day we had nothing to do with [coach] Erland Johnson. Back then, he was the coach. So we did a lot of random things. And then we were like, "Yeah, maybe we should do a music video. Why not?"
Erik Tobias was very good at rhyming...and Botheim said he was good at rapping, so he was the rapper. And I was the one who had [to sing] the chorus... In the end, it's a very good song. It has many views.
Is there any chance that there could be a reunion in Dortmund, maybe a Flow Kingz concert?
In the Westfalen? I do not know. Maybe we should do it once! But we also had the big [dream]… We also talked a lot about what we wanted to be on, I don't know how you say it in English, the "list".
Yes, the Norwegian Top 40.
inspirations and dreams
When we see you on the court, it seems that there is no tomorrow. You give everything in every game. What inspires you when you're on the pitch?
First, win the match. I hate losing, I have to say it's the worst. So what inspires me is winning. And play good football, score good goals.
You are 21 years old. Can you explain the difference between what inspires you to be a footballer and what simply inspires you in life? What is your inspiration to develop yourself as a person? Is it still football?
Yes, for me the main thing in life is football. Of course. My whole life is basically football. Where I live, what I do, it all comes down to training every day and playing on the weekends. But what also inspires me is having a really good and healthy life with really good people around me.
I think I'm a very closed person that not many people can come and "touch" or "get close to". And yes, I am like that. I think that is a good way to do it. And I think it's good for my football career.
When are you really happy? When is Erling Haaland happiest?
It has to be [when I play] soccer, because it's my whole life. If we win a match, then I'm mostly happy.
As a child, were you the same as most children in the sense that you dreamed of being a professional footballer? And did you feel that because your dad [Alfie Haaland, who played in the Premier League with Nottingham Forest, Leeds United and Manchester City] played for big clubs in England, your dream was quite close and could be fulfilled?
Yes, he had the dream of being the rudo when he grew up. I knew early in my life that my father was a professional footballer, and I soon said that I wanted to be better than him. So yes, that was my dream, and also to live the football life. That was one of my dreams. And yes, it is good. It's good to be living that dream.
Have you and your father already reached an agreement on who is the best player? Because it is worth noting that he was the captain of Manchester City and has more caps for the Norwegian national team than you do at the moment. You have more goals, obviously.
I think I have to beat him in all [categories] and only then can I say that I am better than him. But right now, no. He has many more games than me with the national team, more professional games, and more games at a higher level. So I'm pretty calm in that regard for now.
We all know that you are an athlete 24/7. You do everything to get better, whether it's with sleep patterns, work/life balance, what you eat and drink. But if you have a completely non-soccer day, maybe in the summer... What would your perfect day look like?
Wake up without an alarm clock. If the weather is nice, eat a good breakfast and then lie in the sun and relax all day, without doing much. Take life as it comes. With good people around me, and good conversations. I like that a lot.
There's a photo of you from last summer when you were home in Norway, in Bryne. Bryne is an agrarian area, there are a lot of farmers, and you looked like the world's toughest farmer with a tractor. Is it a good day for you?
Yes, it's cute too. I like to do a lot of things to turn off "football head". I think it is very important not to exhaust yourself, to be able to completely relax your head. Because it is not easy to be a footballer, there is a lot of pressure. You have to think a lot, and the mentality has to be correct.
It's a lot of things, so I think when you can relax, you have to. And I think if your head isn't right, you're toast. So whenever possible I try to relax my head as much as I can. And one of those things is, for example, being in the fields or driving a tractor, or feeding the cows, or whatever.
Do you have cows?
No, but I will surely have them in the future.
Would you like to have a field?
I think I'll have a small field at Bryne when I retire. I don't know where, but I'm sure he would have some animals.
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"Thinking too much is the worst part"
What do you need to be a very good footballer?
First of all, you need to have the mentality, as I said... but if you don't have a fit body, if you don't have a healthy body, you have no chance. If you have a very good body, but you don't have the mentality, you don't get there. So you have to have a good mix of both. But I think if you're in a good frame of mind, you'll take good care of your body and you'll have a good body, so it's really the mind that matters.
Speaking of your physical ability: you have physical ability and speed. If you were in my position and you had to compare yourself to another player, past or present, who would you compare yourself to?
I have no idea, so I don't want to compare myself to anyone because I think I'm a bit special with my abilities. I don't know where I got them from. My mother was very fast. My grandmother was fast and my father too, but not as fast. But having a good mix of pace, strength and an eye for goal? I don't know who I could compare myself to.
When I look at your career from the outside, there was always a natural development. And I could say that at times your development has been faster than everyone thought in Molde, in Salzburg and in Dortmund. Everything always seemed to flow, were there times when you thought you had stagnated? Or maybe you couldn't take the next step?
No, not really, but there were times when things were more difficult than other times. During my first time in Molde I grew a lot. I had some problems there and it wasn't easy, but I knew it was going to be. Then I had [former Manchester United manager] Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as manager – and I always knew he was going to take care of me and give me a chance. And then I was able to show that he was really good and that he was ready to take the next step.
In Salzburg, the first half year [with Jesse Marsch] was really difficult... but my intention was to use that half year to develop myself. Still, I felt like it deserved more playing time because it was good, but I think it was a good time not to play because I put a lot of work into a few things. I was able to train a lot because I hardly played. It was a good mental training and I was also able to work a lot on my physical preparation, it was very good for my body.
After that I think the moment came where I was able to take off mentally and take my opportunity when it came. Since then, everything has gone very well. But you know, things are like that… if you don't have a good game, at that moment you develop more because you have to work more on yourself, and that's the hardest thing – in that aspect some players fall short. They can't do it because they start to think too much, and as a footballer, overthinking things is not good.
I don't watch many recordings of my own, I don't like it. I prefer to think about the future.
I'm sure you feel like you've improved in a lot of ways, but I think for those who watch all the games, it seems to me that at the end of last season, you went from being the one who advanced with the ball to being the one who could take the ball. , turn around and engage his teammates – that was a breakthrough. This season, you're better with headers. What are the aspects that you feel you have improved the most?
I think I can keep improving everything. If you tell me I'm good at finishing, I think I can keep improving on that. And I can be faster, so I can improve that too. I can be stronger, so that can also improve. But if I could improve one thing, it would be “not getting injured”, because if I don't get injured, I will be able to play more games and put up even better numbers.
You do a lot of work doing different training all the time to avoid injuries, just like every player should. How frustrating is it to have to exit the game?
It is the worst feeling of all, not being able to play. Because that's basically your job. So if I could improve one thing, it would be not getting injured. And if you ask me if I have any goals for 2022, it would be not to get injured… And if I have goals for the rest of my career, it would be not to get injured.
The last time I interviewed you, you had scored two goals against Freiburg and you came over a bit annoyed. First, because you hadn't scored three goals: that was the first thing you told me. And then you gave some opinions that went viral: as we talked about at the beginning, many people around the world want to understand what you said. Why was it so important for you to say that at the time?
I don't want to say much about it, but I felt it was time to say something since so many were talking. And now I don't want to say much more about that. What I had to say, I already said, and then I went on my way.
I ask you to be honest. Because every reporter who comes to watch a Dortmund match starts writing down all the records you can beat in a list. How many of these statistics do you know? How many times have you said, wow, have I scored that many goals?
No, I don't know much. My father sent me a photo of the stat I achieved, the fastest 80 club goals of all time. I do know this one, but I don't know all of them, to tell you the truth.
You know you are breaking many records.
Yes, but I don't read much. So I really don't know much about it.
You have achieved everything [in Dortmund], but you must miss the fans. Tell us how much you miss playing with them on the court.
That's right, I don't like it. I have already said before. In Germany, we no longer have the fans in the stadiums. And in England, the stadiums are full. If you watch on television, you prefer to watch an English football match because the stadiums are full of fans and there is more emotion, there is more life. I really miss the fans. I played a couple of games this season, with about 50,000 fans, and it was really nice. Imagine if there were 30,000 more.
Partners, personal goals and who is the best for Haaland
Let's talk about your colleagues and friends. Last year, they understood each other very well with Jadon Sancho, for example, and I always said that I have not seen a scorer enjoy so much when the others also score. You seem to have a great relationship with your teammates. That's how it is?
Yes it's correct. As I have said before, I love to win matches, I want to win as many trophies as possible in my career. And to get trophies you have to win games, you have to be consistent, but yes, I enjoy when others do well. That, to me, is the best.
When I was a kid watching football, when I saw a striker score a hat trick in a game, I was very happy for him. And then I thought how nice that feeling must be and that was what I wanted to achieve. And yes, I'm happy for the others. I love when others achieve their goals.
Sometimes when we watch Dortmund play, I mean they have so many talented young players from all over the world and sometimes you or Jude Bellingham... I think with him it's the two young leaders of Dortmund, you two have more or less the same temperament.
The Borussia Dortmund striker shares the three players he would have voted for in FIFA's The Best awards.
He is a very good person. Jude is a phenomenal talent. And I play him just as well as I played Jadon last year. We are on the same page: with Jude we have a very good connection on the court. But I also have a very good connection with many other players. I think that is very important.
Another who has been outside and who is also young, is Gio Reyna. He has now returned to training. How much have you missed it?
Yes, I missed him a lot. We know we can be very good on the pitch, and he has to get his body back at this point. But we'll see him go full throttle again.
Who is the toughest defender you have had to face?
Good question. I've faced a lot of quality defenders. But it also depends on how the team is playing, if I get into the right situations and so on, but Virgil Van Dijk... he's very good. With his height, his strength and his speed. And also his timing is crazy. I don't think I've ever won a duel against him.
What has been the toughest team you have faced?
I could never beat Bayern Munich, so I should say Bayern. I think I faced them six times, six or seven times and I lost every match.
I can ask you this question now because you are not in the Champions League... Who do you think will win the Champions League?
I think it could be Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain or Real Madrid, although PSG and Real will meet [in the Round of 16]. One of these three.
True or false: Dortmund will win the Europa League.
I can't tell if it's true or false, but we have a chance. We have to play our best game and play better than we have been playing this season, there are a lot of good things, but we have a small chance.
Being Norwegians, it is very difficult for us to be able to win a World Cup. What is the biggest trophy you could aspire to?
Well, the most important of all is undoubtedly the World Cup, but we have to be realistic. The Champions League.
You were named to the FIFA FIFPRO Men's World 11 2021. If you had had to vote for the first, second and third, who would you have voted for?
I think I should say Robert Lewandowski at No. 1. And then for me Karim Benzema has been outstanding. Lionel Messi is also impressive. So Benzema and Messi "share" second and third place.
OK, that was a bit diplomatic, but the truth is that they are all great footballers. Is there anything that has inspired you to say that your dream is to win the Champions League?
Yes, of course, but these things come when you are successful with your team. If you manage to be successful with your team, you can achieve many goals, and if you win trophies, these things will come. So this is not the main goal. The main thing is to achieve what you set out to do as a team and the rest will come later.