Trying to explain the best-kept secret of his success, a well-known Argentine newspaper went so far as to affirm last September that Erling Haaland preferred fresh food to frozen ones: an excellent conclusion, very well played. In any case, and sensing that the regular intake of wild blueberries and Skrei cod would not fully clarify the Norwegian’s football explosion, the same report included the statements of Haaland’s personal trainer in Germany who -rather to the contrary- did not evade his quota of responsibility in the creation of the monster. “I designed a circuit in which Erling had to hit a sack at one of the stations,” said Steenslid when questioned about this prodigious recipe capable of turning the most ordinary of humans into a god.
It is curious the way in which some journalists and fans avoid the simplest and most universal truths of soccer while we seek refuge in much more elaborate distortions, more of a university assembly or story On Instagram. From a very young age, on the street, in the yard or on the training ground, boys and girls learn to recognize talent without having to delve into its causes. We know who the really good ones are because we see them throw pipes with a distracted look, which is beauty fleeing from effort, while the rest of us get mad trying to pretend what we are not, sweaty, vile and capricious, incapable of admitting the obvious and reject the accomplice and lying kiss from mom or dad.
“I dream of touching five balls in a game and scoring five goals,” the Norwegian striker joked in a recent interview. It was debated in those days of disparate results if Haaland would not be scoring too many goals for the few that came into play, a problematic point where there are any because, as is well known, the real will never win out in fascination over the imaginary. Something similar already happened in Guardiola’s first season in charge of the sky blue, with countless analysts and commentators wondering what it was worth playing football so well. “I have seen that vegetables, in England, have no soul,” said the American actor Manish Dayal on one occasion without referring to the world of football or Haaland specifically, at least as far as I know, which would have delighted some Argentine journalist and not a few former English soccer players, today recycled into tactical shamans to the point of questioning the significance of the goal.
Success has so many parents that it will not be enough for Erling Haaland to prove the biological merits of his, an elite footballer until Roy Keane broke his knee making a Rupert Murdoch face. Each goal and each record will be accompanied by the corresponding bite of an apple that is on its way to surpassing in importance the one Newton used to explain his universal theory. The ball does not enter by chance, was the title of the book that Ferran Soriano wrote after his successful stay at Barça. Fortunately, today we know that the ball usually enters because guys like Haaland or Messi kick it, not because a dietitian forbids them to eat Dr. Oetker’s pizzas or an executive points out the dotted lines to fill in on the contract.
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