Erling Haaland is not just a goalscoring machine – he is the ultimate football nerd. And his obsession with the game may help explain his success.
Some footballers see it merely as a job which they switch off from when they get home. Haaland is not like that. He grew up in a football family, with his professional footballer dad Alf-Inge the reason why he was born in Leeds.
Haaland is a self-confessed football addict who is, in the words of his Manchester City team-mate Kevin de Bruyne, “so obsessed with goals”. While he has previously explained that he was “bewitched” by watching the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Zlatan Ibrahimovic play, and paid tribute to Sergio Aguero, he casts his net far and wide to improve his game.
“I’ve been, not studying, but watching a lot of players,” Haaland said in an interview with Sky Sports in January 2022. “Let’s take an example: the running in behind the centre-back when the No.10 has the ball.
"You maybe have the best in the world at that [in] Jamie Vardy, I’ve been looking a lot at him on exactly this.
“That’s how I am, I’ve always been watching a lot of football. I still do. When we play on Saturday, I go home and on Sunday I watch football all day. I’ve always liked football a lot.”
Haaland may get the chance to meet Vardy this weekend when City host Leicester at the Etihad Stadium in the late kick-off on Saturday afternoon. The Norwegian was absent from the City side which beat Leicester 1-0 back in October due to injury but will be raring to go this time around.
Vardy is now 36 years old and has been a bit-part player for the Foxes this season, with 17 of his 34 appearances in all competitions coming from the substitutes’ bench. But he started their last Premier League game against Bournemouth last weekend and may get the chance to bring up 300 Premier League appearances and impress Haaland with his trademark runs in behind the defence on Saturday.
Haaland may have a remarkable 45 goals in all competitions this season – a record for a Premier League player – but he still has some way to go to match Vardy’s tally. The fleet-footed striker has 134 goals in 299 Premier League games – a number which puts him 14th on the all-time list, with Harry Kane (206) the only active player ahead of him.
Vardy’s goalscoring exploits are all the more remarkable when you consider his journey to get there. After considering quitting football to be an Ibiza party rep, he only made his Premier League debut in August 2014, aged 27, following a career which had taken him from Stocksbridge Park Steels in non-league, via Halifax and Fleetwood to Leicester.
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He netted just five times in his debut campaign in 2014/15, but once Leicester’s status in the top-flight was secure – thanks to a run of seven wins from their final nine games – Vardy set about turning himself into a reliable goal-getter, helping the Foxes win the title in 2015/16.
His lightning pace made him a constant threat in behind defences and he frequently exploited high lines by latching onto through-balls and hopeful punts forward. With accurate finishing from both feet – he has scored 86 with his stronger right and 32 with his left – Vardy became the full package.
“He’s very concentrated in his game, very focused in the game,” Leicester boss Brendan Rodgers said in 2019. “He’s a striker who is very rarely offside because of the timing of his runs. You have to be so clever and bright to do that.”
His success lead to frequent transfer rumours, with Arsenal and Manchester United among the clubs to court him, but Vardy stayed put and continued to bang in the goals. His tallies between 2015/16 and 2021/22 show his remarkable consistency: 24, 13, 20, 18, 23, 15, 15.
During the same period, only Tottenham star Kane can claim a better record, while Mohamed Salah has got to within a single goal of Vardy’s total since joining Liverpool in 2017.
Haaland’s work in studying Vardy, among others, has clearly paid off, with the 22-year-old putting together a frankly staggering run of form since joining City in a £51m move from Borussia Dortmund last summer.
“We have lived with [Lionel] Messi and Cristiano [Ronaldo] for two incredible decades - and now Haaland is on that level,” Pep Guardiola purred recently.
He has already broken records and there are still several matches left to completely further obliterate the achievements of others. De Bruyne is confident Haaland can do just that. “Erling is so obsessed with goals,” he said in December. “He already has about 200 goals, so he can probably go to 600, 700 or 800 if he stays fit and does the things that he does.”
If he does so, then Vardy can rightfully claim to helping lay the groundwork for a small part of that journey.
