Erling Haaland never visits the Mixed Zone – the post-game interview area where players can talk as much or as little as they like.
In fact, after Manchester City home games, he hardly ever walks through, let alone to chat.
City have played 30 times at Etihad Stadium this season and there are only two standout moments.
For the first time since they beat Nottingham Forest 6-0 on the eve of the transfer deadline last August and he had scored a hat-trick in the first half, journalists were already crowding around Bernardo Silva, who explained why the move had failed . Haaland slipped through behind him while the rest of us were put under the spell of Bernardo – almost as if Pep Guardiola planned it at the training ground.
Months passed before the 22-year-old ran through a mixed zone again, and this time he was also with Bernardo. The diminutive Portuguese winger grabbed his much taller teammate and tried to push him towards us. “Hi guys! Who wants to speak to Erling?” he joked.
And of course it was a joke, because when City is away and there’s no choice but to walk through the mixed zone on the way back to the team bus, and Haaland is within shouting distance, he doesn’t even turn his head to confirm our interest . That’s what happened this second time.
Footballers can do what they want with their time, not least because many of them have already given post-game TV interviews, asking the same questions the press would ask if they were standing in the mixed zone would. They have families to see living a life and in many cases it seems that the less they say the easier life is.
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And Haaland doesn’t say much at all. In fact, he came to England last summer with a reputation for being very dismissive when he said anything; There are YouTube compilations of his most embarrassing media interactions. Sometimes he looks happy while answering with just two words, sometimes he looks annoyed, but either way he doesn’t give much away.
Those grumpy interviews seem to be a thing of the past since he joined City, and he’s become a little more accommodating. He certainly doesn’t come across as rude and often seems to be having a good time: in August he spoke frankly with Alan Shearer for The Athletic and during a live chat with Sky Sports last month when City were showing off the Premier League trophy he broke up him to sing and celebrate with the fans.
And why not? He had just won his first league title in England. Surely it would be much better to remember the admiration of the supporters than to give another interview, right?
(Photo: Catherine Ivill/Getty Images)
But it does mean he’s a special breed from a media standpoint: a big name everyone wants to hear about but doesn’t say much. In that sense, he’s like Lionel Messi.
Hence, there were mixed feelings when it was suggested that Haaland would attend City’s official media day ahead of this weekend’s Champions League final.
Finally the chance to test the Tormaschine!
Absolutely grateful. But what can we ask of him to get a good answer? And will he actually do it? Difficulty multipliers have also been added. A five minute time limit and the spectacle of 30 journalists yelling at each other and peppering the topic with random questions.
The day went smoothly: Kyle Walker, Ederson, Kevin De Bruyne and John Stones had come to get their five minutes done and all on time, especially given the multitude of other chores they had to attend to.
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Then you had to wait a bit.
Then the wait got a little longer.
Was Haaland even in the building? It wasn’t to the point where you’d ask if the food was on its way if a restaurant took its time to order, but because Haaland is so reluctant to do things like that, it got a little worrying.
Especially when Nathan Ake and Ruben Dias took first place – these are known for spending hours in the gym after their workout.
“Fifteen, 20 minutes (more),” one of City’s press team assured us. Everything’s ok.
He arrived about ten minutes later, had his picture taken for official recordings, and then spoke to TV2, a station from his native Norway that he used to see a lot of, but not much anymore. In fact, there are still three minutes to go to this point. seven after.
When Haaland was done with everything else, he walked over. And it was one step. This happened on a large indoor playing field at City’s training ground, and he marched across it with the swagger of a main protagonist in Grand Theft Auto.
“Hello everyone,” he yelled.
Before he came to us for the written part, he had to approach a bevy of radio reporters. The two major broadcasters in the UK struck a deal so both viewers could hear from him.
Our pen was full: the metal gates allowed five journalists – or six ordinary people – to stand side by side. Four of us had occupied the front row a few hours earlier — like fans turning up outside the venue at 7am on the day of a Beyoncé performance. Everyone else followed behind. One journalist even pulled up a chair to stand on.
And then it started.
Haaland’s first two answers did not bode well.
Is the Ballon d’Or important to him?
“I’m not thinking, I’m thinking about winning the next game,” he replied.
What do you think of Inter Milan standing between City and the treble? What are their strengths?
“I really don’t like talking too much about my opponents…” He elaborated a bit, but not much, and after 30 seconds we were already down with two questions.
You’re probably thinking that these questions are hardly firestarters themselves, and that’s a valid point. There was shamefully very little planning. It was every man for himself.
A Norwegian reporter, who had also secured a front-row seat, tried a couple of times to ask a question – but got lost. Haaland turned to him and joked: “A little louder.”
It was the reporter in the chair who won that particular fight, drowning out three or four others. Haaland has said a couple of times now that he was brought to City to help them win the Champions League – one of the most telling things he’s done this season – and that’s why he’s been asked from the top down if which put some pressure on the days leading up to the finals.
“Of course I feel pressure,” he said, which shouldn’t come as a surprise but was nonetheless a little surprising considering he’s revered as a football machine despite his young age. “I would be lying if I said I didn’t. You say it yourself and it’s true: you won the Premier League without me, you won every trophy without me. That’s why I’m here to try to do something the club has never done before and I’ll do my best.”
The Norwegian reporter then got his chance and asked about the criticism Haaland had faced earlier in the season when it was claimed he wasn’t a good fit for City despite having scored 26 goals in 20 games at the time.
“I think it’s often a good thing when people start criticizing you,” he said. “I scored a goal in every single game and then people started criticizing me. That’s basically what happened. When people criticize you, it’s usually a good thing, it’s just a matter of smiling a little and enjoying life.” (He hasn’t scored in every game.)
He was asked about City’s winning trophies and pointed out how close they had come to a treble in the recent past – reaching the FA Cup and Champions League semi-finals and winning the title and champions last season -League-1 and the FA Cup semi-finals to win the Premier League (and win the Carabao Cup) in the 2020/21 season – and finished with: “I don’t know what else to say.”
Next came some more criticism.
Haaland missed a couple of chances in the Community Shield loss to Liverpool on his official City debut in July and articles have been written since then suggesting it might take time for him to settle down after his move from Borussia Dortmund. Media reports drew unfavorable comparisons to Darwin Nunez, Liverpool’s new striker, who actually scored a goal that day.
When asked about it, he completely out of the blue made a joke about his good friend Jack Grealish, who was only showing his best form for City in his second season, having joined from Aston Villa in the summer of 2021.
“I told Jack sometimes it might take players a year or so to get into the new league and new team and everything else, and sometimes players come right in and show their performance… I told him that.” That’s for laughs provided.
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“So yes, that was a game. community sign. I missed a few big chances. It can happen, it will happen again. What can you do? Nothing. You have to focus on what’s next, on the next game, and that’s what I did. In the next game (the Premier League opener against West Ham) I scored two goals so it wasn’t a bad start anyway.”
(Photo: Michael Regan – The FA/The FA via Getty Images)
Does he listen to criticism?
“No,” he says, “but I’m not stupid. Of course I take things with me. I don’t read anything because I think my brain would be a little crazy if I read everything everyone writes. So I can’t do that, but I get things and then it was even better to score two goals in the next game.”
A few questions later, Haaland was asked if he had set a goal for this season and if so… well we couldn’t figure out what the ‘if so’ part was because he had already made a firm statement : ” NO”.
A City staffer indicated that the next question would be the last and it was about whether Haaland would eat his father’s homemade lasagna the night before the game, which had become a tradition as the season progressed.
He didn’t hear it the first time, leaning forward with a loud “Eh?!” and then adding: “No, I think I’ll be traveling to Istanbul in a few days, so he won’t be there to cook “I’m sorry.”
Thankfully, he stayed for a few more questions, which gave a glimpse of his mindset at the end of a season in which he’s scored 52 goals, breaking all sorts of records, including most goals in a single Premier League season. His first in competition was of course at 22 years old.
Did he expect to be so productive right away?
“No, I didn’t expect to score that many goals, but I could have scored more. I missed a lot of chances so I could have scored more goals. That’s the truth.”
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that he always wants more goals as that’s what we’ve come to expect from him in the City shirt, but it’s interesting that he even pulls back a little considering he’s literally about it laughs when he misses a goal sometimes chances on the pitch.
So how does he feel about progressing to the Champions League final after scoring just one goal in his last seven games – not only his most sterile stint at City but at any of his clubs since he was home as a kid was in Molde?
“You can think of it as a goal in seven games or 52 goals in 52 games… and eight assists, I think.” The addition of the assists was very funny – their portrayal was deadpan.
“So you can look at it both ways.”
How does he feel about it?
“I’m not stressed. I feel really good.”
See you in Turkey, Erling. Perhaps.
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(Top Photo: Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)