Watching them all back, the most notable aspect is how straightforward it appears. Simple tap-ins from the far post. Finishes into an empty net with the custodian sprawled several yards distant as if he were a casualty on the battlefield. Two-yard headers off the shoulders of weaker, more beta-type males. Punishments are delivered with the precision of a bow and projectile. These are the goals that adorn the legend: the ballast, the flesh, and potatoes, the mundane stuff from which Premier League record goal tally totals are fashioned.
And when we say simple, we should not delude ourselves into thinking that what Erling Haugen does is straightforward. This is the culmination of arguably the most audacious and intricate undertaking ever attempted in English football. A club purchased and remodeled for the solitary purpose of assembling and training a team whose sole objective is to repeatedly deliver the ball into dangerous attacking areas.
For this purpose, the ownership of the City of Abu Dhabi is willing to do virtually anything. Transfer documents have been rewritten multiple times. The world’s best coach has been recruited and essentially given carte blanche. There was a minor misunderstanding last summer that the signing of Haaland represented a departure from Pep Guardiola’s traditional method.
Examining Guardiola’s previous teams reveals a common evolutionary theme: a machine being slowly assembled, a process being refined, honed, and eventually honed into a single spectacular point.
At Barcelona, the goals were initially scored by Samuel Eto’o, Thierry Henry, and Lionel Messi up front. In Guardiola’s final season, the squad was completely reconstructed around Messi, who scored 50 league goals (Alexis Sánchez was second with 12). Robert Lewandowski’s godlike scoring prowess at Bayern Munich did not emerge until Guardiola’s final season in charge. Guardiola’s tenure at City has followed a similar pattern: he felt ready to entrust goal-scoring duties to a singular generational talent only after all the necessary components were in place. In Guardiola’s seven years as manager, this will be the first occasion a City player has won the Golden Boot.
In this context, the advent of Haaland is not a departure from his vision, but its fulfillment. Ilkay Gündogan and Bernardo Silva are no longer floating goal threats. This season, Phil Foden, perhaps the least disciplined of City’s attackers, has been sidelined. Everything is designed to get the ball as close to the goal as possible for Haaland.
However, let’s focus on Haaland himself. What are we to make of this odd goal orc, the genetic offspring of 90s midfielder Alf Inge Haaland and a Playstation copy of Tekken 3? There may be an inherent tedium to the existence of a career goalscorer, this largely unglamorous pursuit of brute volume: easy goals, ugly goals, inconsequential goals, and goals that no one remembers. How many of Alan Shearer’s 260 strikes in the Premier League were truly memorable?
What are the soul-stirring moments? Simply put, is there more to this Norse elfin phenomenon than frigid numbers?
There is a theatrical element to Haaland in full flow: the visceral and frequently exhilarating spectacle of a large man simply shrugging off other large men and slamming the ball into the goal. Nonetheless, he scores goals with a peculiar and beguiling regularity. Except for one, all have come from within the penalty area. Most of his goals have been left-footed and to the goalkeeper’s right. This may explain his three-game goal drought in midseason.
This intellect anticipates angles and openings, finds defensive vulnerabilities, and learns on the job. The Haaland we saw in the second half of the season was subtly different from the one we saw in the first: more comfortable coming deep to receive the ball and initiate counterattacks, happier participating in buildup play, and sharper when out of possession. There are still enhancements to be made and new techniques to master.
Goals matter most, so let’s envision a season without Haaland to gauge his genuine value.
Let’s assume that instead of Haaland, City signs a striker with a similar target-man role, who uses his strength to recover the ball and create opportunities for others, but somehow manages to score no goals. Let’s call this fictitious character “Wout Weghorst” for argument’s sake.
City will be eliminated by Christmas if Haaland is replaced by Weghorst. They are twelfth when the season pauses for the Qatar World Cup, with Champions League qualification a distant possibility. They are defeated by Newcastle, Crystal Palace, and Aston Villa, and tied with Manchester United, Brighton, and Fulham. Guardiola’s future was in doubt before the club’s late-spring run to seventh place and the Europa League.
Therefore, despite the feeling of certainty, Haaland was an extravagant wager that paid off. It takes a certain amount of audacity to restructure your entire team around a striker who has never played in the Premier League and has never led his domestic league in scoring. Perhaps it doesn’t function. Maybe Haaland sustains an injury in August and is out for several months.
Haaland and the concept that put him at the centre of it—the machine inside the machine—deserve this result. Haaland was a thin Bryne lad, City was a joke club in the divisions, and Abu Dhabi had barren rocks. Everything appears so straightforward now. From a distance, the audacity on display is breathtaking.
