Stronger than Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo at the same age, already courted by FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester City: Erling Haaland, the prodigious Norwegian scorer of Borussia Dortmund (21), comes forward as one of the players the most coveted of the transfer market (or transfer window) in 2022.
His agent Mino Raiola fueled speculation in December saying there was “a good chance Erling will leave Dortmund, maybe this summer, maybe next summer”.
“He can, and wants, to take the next step,” said Raiola, for whom “Bayern, Real, Barcelona, Manchester City are the kind of big clubs he can go to. When he signed for Dortmund, we all knew that next step would come ”.
FC Barcelona president Joan Laporta has already met Raiola. But the European press rather sends the Scandinavian to Real Madrid or Manchester, or even Paris SG… The German newspaper Bild also claim that Bayern have not given up, if ever Robert Lewandowski were to leave this summer.
In short, Borussia Dortmund, which has just been eliminated in the group stage of the Champions League and has not won the Bundesliga since 2012, has neither the scale nor the means to retain its gunner for a very long time.
150 million
The exact content of Haaland’s contract, which expires in 2024, is a well-kept secret. German media are talking about a € 75-90million departure clause as early as 2022, but Borussia boss Hans-Joachim Watzke has denied the rumor.
Watzke does not seem to be under any illusions. He just wants to know as quickly as possible what will be the future of the Norwegian colossus, who arrived in 2020 from Salzburg: “We will still discuss in the coming weeks”, he said at the beginning of the month, “and we will all do so as not to wait until March or April to know the decision ”.
The specialized site transfermarkt.de estimates the value of the genius at 150 million euros ($ 220 million), if however its price were to be fixed by the free play of the market. Which would make him the most expensive player in history after Neymar and Kylian Mbappé, acquired respectively for 222 and 180 million euros by Paris SG.
Better than Ronaldo
Recruiting Haaland, still at the start of his career, would be a winning move in several ways. It would already take a whole page to list all of your precocity records, but a few figures give the measure of the phenomenon.
Since leaving Norway for RB Salzburg (Austria) at the age of 18, then for Dortmund a year later, he has scored 105 club goals in 106 games.
In the Champions League, his ratio is even more impressive, with already 23 achievements in only 21 games. At the same age (21 years and 6 months), Ronaldo – all-time top scorer in the Champions League with 140 goals – had still not scored a single goal in the queen competition. And it had taken 61 C1 games to reach this 23-goal mark.
Haaland’s leader temperament, a bandleader with a warrior’s body language, will also be welcome at any club in the world. And his heightened professionalism, his humility and his hard work make him an easy-to-manage player, far removed from divas with private life and devastating mood swings.
If he scores the majority of his goals from close range thanks to his sense of placement and his acceleration in the box, he is also a team player: in 10 Bundesliga games this season, he has given his teammates five assists, in addition to his 13 goals.
Enough to make him one of the stars of the year 2022 on the soccer planet, even if the Norwegian selection failed to qualify for the World Cup in Qatar (November 21-December 18).