"When he scored goals, he celebrated them a lot, running all over the pitch. Even as a kid, I could see that he had an intuition for scoring." Espen Undheim said that about an eight-year-old Erling Haaland at Bryne FK. Thirty-odd goals a season later, it reads less like a coaching observation and more like prophecy.
Undheim is still a youth coach at Bryne, the small agricultural town in southern Norway where Haaland grew up. He remembers a skinny kid who, if he wasn't in school or asleep, was on the indoor pitch with a group of boys a year older than him. Three training sessions a week after school. Always looking to score. Always furious when he didn't.
That fury hasn't gone anywhere. Even during this season's FA Cup final, Haaland was reportedly angry that a teammate hadn't slipped him the ball in the game's final attack. Manchester City had already won. Didn't matter. The drive is permanent.
Not the obvious talent — at first
Leif Gunnar Smerud, who coached Norway's under-18s and under-21s before moving on to a career that eventually took him to NWSL side Angel City, was around when Haaland first appeared on the national radar. His assessment is honest in a way coaches rarely are in public.
"He was good, of course, but he wasn't like the one that we were all waiting for."
Haaland was nearly one-footed as a young player — heavily left-sided — and physically behind his peers. Smerud thinks that actually shaped him. Players who can't rely on physicality have to develop positioning, timing, movement, and technique. Haaland had to. And then, once the body caught up, he had everything.
By 15 he was playing for Bryne's under-18 side. At 17, Molde came calling. Two years later, he scored all nine of Norway's goals in a single 12-0 Under-20 World Cup thrashing of Honduras — all nine in one game — and was fast-tracked straight into the senior squad. RB Salzburg signed him. Borussia Dortmund paid over $20 million to take him to the Bundesliga. Manchester City came next.
The World Cup debut — and what it means
Haaland is set to make his senior World Cup debut on June 16 against Iraq, with Norway — who haven't qualified for the tournament since 1998 — facing a group that also includes France and Senegal. It's a tough draw. Norway will need to be at their best to reach the knockouts, and Haaland's output will be central to that. City backers already know what he does to a match when motivated; World Cup markets are about to find out.
Back in Bryne, they're planning to pack 1,000 youth players into the same indoor arena where Haaland spent his childhood. On the outside wall: a painting of him, 50 metres tall and 15 metres wide.
Undheim, who coached him at eight years old, puts it simply: "When I hear interviews with him now, I can still say this is the boy I know from Bryne... he hasn't changed."
