Before the virus struck, Erling Haaland, the 19 year old superstar striker for Dortmund, truly proved himself as one of the best in the world. The January transfer only played 8 games, but scored an amazing 9 goals, grabbing the world’s attention.
Most football fans know the basics about Haaland, but they don’t know enough of his backstory, and how he rose to where he is now:
Erling is the son of retired legend Alf-Ing Haaland who played for Manchester City at one point in his career.
Erling made his professional debut at 15 years old for his local club Bryne, a second league team in Norway, and soon after was picked up quickly by Molde FK, a first league team in Norway.
At 17 he became a massive part of the Norwegian U-19 team and soon to be the first team.
After Molde FK, he moved to Red Bull Salzburg where he played remarkably playing 21 games there and scoring 28 goals.
14 months after his move there he would leave and join his current team — Dortmund — where he continues torment teams he comes up against.
His time at Salzburg is where he drew the attention of European giants, scoring against teams like Liverpool, Napoli and most recently PSG.
He drew a lot of attention from Manchester United who were very heavily linked to the Norwegian, as his old manager from Molde FK , Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is the current manager of and was keen to sign him; but unfortunately Erling felt he needed a team where he can develop more as a player
Manchester United weren’t the only European giants to be linked with him. He was also linked with teams like Liverpool, Barcelona, even Real Madrid!
As a United supporter, I sure do hope he makes his way to Manchester in the coming years to play under Solskjaer; but for now, he will continue his rise to the top of the footballing ranks.
