When you think of great players in the game right now, Erling Haaland is very much in that conversation. Having exploded onto the scene with FC Salzburg, when he made history as the first player to score in five consecutive Champions League games, the 21-year-old Norwegian striker has continued to smash records and defy our expectations at Borussia Dortmund, scoring 56 goals in 57 games (all competitions).
Now we’re waiting to see what the remarkable forward does next. Real Madrid? Manchester City? Manchester United? Somewhere else? With the soccer world at his feet, Haaland sat down with ESPN FC’s Jan Aage Fjortoft to talk 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 are a Dortmund player, a 21-year-old guy from Bryne, and you’re also a superstar to the point that whatever you say — your body language, interviews — means the whole football world has an opinion. Who do you think you are?
Erling Haaland: A good question. Before I came to Dortmund, I still saw myself as an easy guy from Bryne — I still do, but in a little bit of different way, you could say. Things have changed the last two and a half years since my debut in the Champions League, and I’m still a really quiet guy from Bryne. I’m a bit crazy sometimes, just with different limits.
Tell us about some of your limits.
As you said, people have an opinion about everything I do. And I have to take a little bit of care with the things I do, the things I wear. Everything in life, basically.
When you say you have to take some care … when people look at you, they don’t think you have a lot of limits. They see Erling Haaland.
I try to be myself as much as I can. When there is a camera, you have to be a little bit careful. That’s just how it is. So that’s one limit. But you can see that when I’m on the…
Source : espn
