Where did the weird and wonderful E. Rling Haaland go? Photo: Getty Images/Paul Ellis
It was hard to see Erling Haaland squander his early promise. It would be perverse to criticize his first season in England, mocking the idea that it takes time to adapt to the Premier League. Haaland was so good that fantasy football fans will name kids after him.
But somewhere along the way, something got lost. Before City, Haaland had been a remarkably blunt conversationalist. He had a Norwegian impatience to be in front of the camera that matched his demeanor on the pitch, a man fed up with his own outlandish gifts as one of Logan Roy's helpless children.
When Haaland speaks now, he is in the same register as his tactically interchangeable teammates. A little humor, a little humble, heartfelt laughter everywhere, and then into the night. He's another perfect cog in City's winning machine, but on the Noel team, he has to be Liam.
As with Oasis, Haaland's early work is still his best. He once scored a hat-trick in the first half of the Champions League while still playing for Energy Drink Salzburg. He was asked how he felt.
“I feel very good.”
“Anything else?”
“You ask how I I felt myself, I answered.”
After the pandemic match for Borussia Dortmund, he came up to salute the empty south stand, where Dortmund's yellow wall should have been. Why?
«Why not?»
«Is there a message you want to send?»
«Yes».
Young Erling Haaland was a far more intriguing figure on screen. Photo: Reuters/Ronny Hartmann. against Jeff Shrives. But it still seems a disappointment that Haaland's only memorable City interview to date included swearing, then apologizing, and repeating the same word again while doing so.
Otherwise it was business as usual. There was a master class on CBS, after the game he would arrive at the fieldside podium, shake hands with Jamie Carragher, Thierry Henry and Mick Richards, and then presenter Jules Breach, generously offering more than two words, when asked again what it was like to score a goal : then moved on to a defiant critique of Carragher and Richards. Tutorial.
Erling Haaland interview with @CBSSportsGolazo. 😂💀pic.twitter.com/Pd3l7Ujvli
— City Headquarters (@City_HQs) March 14, 2023
There was a credible attempt at Barnsley's accent when he mocked John Stones' pronunciation at the Louvre.
Holland's impression of John Stones 🤣 pic.twitter.com com/9879IDZSkG
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL), April 17, 2023
(Why is John Stones forced to talk about the Louvre? This never happened to Terry Butcher.)
Then, during a gentle roast by Gary Neville, Haaland revealed that he enjoys kebab pizza and wine. So, just like with football, he has adapted to the established way of doing these things at the highest level: light-hearted and chronically unrevealed.
A slightly serious moment is that we are watching how an unusual person smooths out his sharp corners. Haaland must behave himself now that he is in the Premier League, a platform that will not tolerate anything but its predetermined limits on weirdness, unchanged since the border-pushing era of Jimmy Bullard.
And Haaland is strange, no doubt about it. Look at him, the 90s action villain who gives Bruce Willis a chance to make money before he is defeated in the final act. Physically it's unlike anything we've seen before, a granite sculpture but terrifyingly fast, hitting the penalty area hard like a Boston Dynamics robot dog.
Sometimes he wears his hair in thin braids. When Neville asked him about the three people he would take with him to the desert island, he named Kevin de Bruyne, who would «help» him (hur-hur-hur) and also, almost affectionately, his mother and father, «well take care of me and cook food.» some good Norwegian food.”
On the field, Haaland shakes like an electric shock, but now it's more like an electric blanket. Maybe he's happier in the City, more mature, or he didn't like the optics of anxious, squirming interviewers. Maybe if City ever goes through a period of real adversity, some of the former advantages will return.
So far, he gives normal interviews that make him seem normal, which is clearly not the case.
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