How a tiny boy became football’s ultimate predator
Espen Undheim has clung on to clips of a 10-year-old Erling Haaland playing football at his first club Bryne FK. The pre-teen facsimile of the present-day Haaland captured for posterity in these grainy video clips does not quite have the same signature hairdo that the Norway star rocks these days. Back then, he was tiny too — tinier than others in his age group — Undheim pointed out. But there’s something that Haaland had at the age of 10 that he still possesses: his sense of timing and his positioning on the pitch. Early on Monday, Haaland used these skills to evade Brazil defenders and stab two goals into the net, thus sending Norway to the quarter-finals of the FIFA World Cup. In doing so, Haaland also propelled himself upwards in the Golden Boot race, where he now co-habits the top spot with Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe. “You can see the runs that he makes now. I have videos from when he was 10 and 11. You can see the same situation and the …
