Haaland scored so many goals in Man City’s journey to winning the great treble, it will be no surprise that he wins the 2023 Golden Ball.
Make way for Lionel Messi, his days of dominating the Ballon d’Or are over! A new king is ready to take your throne. His name is Erling Haaland, and last season he scored a total of 52 goals in 53 matches, while winning all the major club trophies with Manchester City.
With Haaland’s relentless desire to score, City caught up with Arsenal – the long-time Premier League leader – to win their third consecutive championship trophy. He also led the team to victory in the FA Cup, defeating arch-rivals Manchester United in the final.
And most importantly, Haaland inspired City to victory in the Champions League, the trophy they crave most and which previously seemed unattainable until Erling Haaland joined. He is also the top scorer of this top European tournament.
With such a list of achievements, it’s magical why the voting process was needed for this year’s Ballon d’Or. As GOAL explains, no one can go up against Haaland for the highest individual award in football. Even Messi…
Always speed up
Haaland arrived in England last year with an inexplicable reputation for scoring prowess with previous clubs such as Red Bull Salzburg, where he scored 17 goals in 16 league games Austria, and Borussia Dortmund, where he has 62 goals in 67 Bundesliga matches. However, few would have expected him to maintain such an incredible goal-scoring rate in one of the world’s most difficult tournaments.
Haaland, just 22 years old when he joined City for £52 million ($65 million), quickly proved to his doubters that he could score, scoring nine goals in five games. first, including two consecutive hat-tricks. Instead of being slowed down by his move to English football, he accelerated and continued to score more goals than in any previous season, breaking new records every day.
By October, Haaland had become the fastest player to score three hat-tricks in Premier League history, in just eight matches. The previous record belonged to Michael Owen, who took 48 games to reach this milestone for Liverpool. By the end of February, he had scored 27 goals in the Premier League, breaking Sergio Aguero’s record for most goals in a Premier League season for Manchester City.
Haaland also surpassed Alan Shearer and Andy Cole’s record of 34 goals in a single Premier League season, which has stood for 28 years. He finished the season with 36 goals in 35 games and just 32 starts, averaging a goal every 77 minutes.
Guardiola and his teammates adapted very quickly to Haaland
There is also speculation that Haaland may take some time to adapt to City, who played most of last season without a striker. There are also questions about how Haaland will adapt to Pep Guardiola – who is famous for being strict and demanding. Finally, Guardiola had a disastrous relationship with Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the player Haaland admires most.
However, those opinions were soon proven to be completely wrong. Instead of Haaland having to adapt to his new teammates, someone else adapted to him. And it quickly became clear that Guardiola had spent the summer planning new tactics to ensure he got the best out of the Norwegian.
Jack Grealish was forced to curb individual tendencies and Kevin De Bruyne, City’s top scorer last season, was encouraged to serve Haaland first. He did so cheerfully, providing 13 assists for the striker.
Guardiola’s hunger to get the most out of Haaland extends far beyond the attacking players. He abandoned the idea of a risky full-back, with a loss of relationship with Joao Cancelo and a brief stint with Kyle Walker. Instead, he used natural defenders like Nathan Ake, Manuel Akanji and John Stones at full-back, while Stones also transformed into a sweeping central midfielder.
Guardiola almost abandoned his previous game plan just to accommodate Haaland. And that has brought great success.
Creating history at Man City
It is true that when Haaland joined, City were already a great team and had won four of the last five Premier League titles. But the Norwegians made them even stronger, while also making them unpredictable in confrontation.
His huge presence in the penalty area makes it impossible for opponents to just sit and defend for 90 minutes like before. And his speed prevents teams from playing a high defense and trying to attack high.
City have never before won three Premier League titles in a row, but Haaland has helped them reach that milestone, becoming only the third team after Manchester United in 2001 and 2009. Can they overcome Arsenal, who lead the way? start the championship race from August to early May, without Haaland? It seems unbelievable.
Haaland is also the missing piece in City’s ultimate picture: winning the Champions League. Guardiola won the top European award twice in his first three years as head coach with Barcelona, but since then it has always stayed out of his reach. He reached the semi-finals three times with Bayern Munich and once with City, but was unsuccessful.
With Haaland on the team, he eased that burden, impressively eliminating aristocratic sides Bayern Munich and Real Madrid before finally beating a resilient Inter in the final in Istanbul. City’s victory in Turkey made them only the second team in English football history to win the treble, mimicking Manchester United’s 1999 achievement that Blue fans were ecstatic to hear. Now they have their own treble to brag about, and it’s all thanks to Haaland.
Had a more successful season than Messi
Despite a near-perfect season, Haaland faces a formidable opponent in the race for this year’s Ballon d’Or. No one can deny that Messi, with seven awards, is one of the greatest players of all time, a magical player that amazes others. And yes, last season Messi finally won the World Cup, the only thing missing from his remarkably long list of titles, and played a key role in Argentina’s victory.
But, besides his impressive achievements in Qatar, what else did Messi do last season? His Paris Saint-Germain only struggled to get through the Ligue 1 championship race and was eliminated in the round of 16 of the French National Cup. And they suffered another defeat in the Champions League, which Messi was brought to Paris to help them win.
PSG failed to top their group in comical circumstances, plunging them into a tough confrontation with Bayern Munich in the round of 16. Messi has gone unknown in both games against Bayern, just as he has become in lost to Real Madrid last season at the same stage.
Being knocked out of the Champions League practically marked the end of Messi’s campaign, and his final months at PSG were a nightmare. He was whistled by the club’s fans and criticized by President Nasser Al-Khelaifi after missing a training session to fulfill his commercial obligations in Saudi Arabia.
“It’s been two years (at PSG) that I’m not happy. I don’t enjoy and that affects my family life,” Messi admitted to Mundo Deportivo newspaper in July. Neymar more bluntly , said of his and Messi’s time in the French capital: “We went through hell, both you and I.”
Messi is the past, Haaland is the present and the future
Messi is undeniably the best player of the World Cup and has been well rewarded, winning the Ballon d’Or. He also won FIFA’s The Best award in February, mainly thanks to his performances in Qatar. Messi has received enough honors for leading the Argentina team to victory nine months ago. And when the Ballon d’Or ceremony takes place in Paris in October, it will be almost a year since the World Cup.
He has since been kicked out of PSG and is currently finishing his MLS career with Inter Miami. He is having a great time, leading his new team to Leagues Cup victory and being watched by a crowd of celebrities and admiring fans every week. But he is no longer at the pinnacle of club football and his most prominent teammates are over the age of 35.
Meanwhile, Haaland is at the peak of his life, at the age of 23, playing for the best team in the world, in the best league in the world and under the guidance of the best coach in the world. His record-breaking achievements and treble trophy win are still fresh in the memory, and he has had a strong start to the new season, scoring six goals in his first four games, including one hat-trick against Fulham in the last match. He was also named UEFA Player of the Year and PFA Player of the Year.
Let’s face it, Messi is now a thing of the past in football, enjoying one last tour before retiring early. Meanwhile, Haaland is the present and future of football.
