Erling Haaland is Only Really Good at One Thing. Yet.

Imagine what one of Europe's best goalscorers will be when he grows up.

The way he moves reminds you he’s still a kid. Here he is hurtling downfield, barely out of his teens and already one of the world’s deadliest strikers, and even though you’re a little terrified of what you know that left foot is going to do to the ball there’s something in the hunched shoulders and careless arms that suggests his body’s a size too big for him, that he’s not yet fully in control. Which is the scariest thing about Erling Haaland: there’s still so much room to grow.

He is not lovable, this lunk. The Nordic hair and testosterone-heavy brow make him look like the Cro Magnon version of an eighties teen movie villain, and he’s got the on-field personality to match. Good luck missing a shot or having your cross blocked without Haaland throwing his arms up to tell you that he, your more talented teammate, would have done better. But in a weird way that’s part of his talent, isn't it? The flailing runs and flailing complaints tell center backs exactly where they should be directing their attention, away from Jadon Sancho and Marco Reus and Gio Reyna and Jude Bellingham, those guys can’t hurt you, look at me, me, me.

Somehow, sooner or later, they still forget. Since he got to Dortmund in January, Haaland has scored 17 goals in 18 German Bundesliga matches, a disappointing dropoff from his 17 goals in 16 Austrian Bundesliga matches during his quick stop at RB Salzburg. I wanted to understand how a 20-year-old got this good, so I spent the last couple days clipping every move he’s made in Dortmund’s last four games. Here’s what I saw.

The first thing you notice if you watch him for a minute is how busy Haaland is in every phase. Dortmund’s back three spread the field in the buildup to buy themselves time on the ball, and Emre Can on the right and especially Mats Hummels in the middle like to use it to pick out Haaland over the top. As good as Hummels’ passing is, the idea behind these runs isn’t really that they’ll produce a route one goal—that’d be a pretty inefficient way to attack. Hummels will test the space behind the high line like a pitcher brushing back a batter early in the count, then use the pocket Haaland’s runs create in front of the pinned center backs to play more dangerous linebreaking passes to the attacking mids underneath him in the 3-4-2-1.

There’s a similar decoy thing going on with Haaland’s slip runs in the middle third, which are noisy enough to tug center backs toward the sideline and draw double teams even though he’s about as likely to dribble somebody up the wing as he is to write Norway’s next great novel about an Arctic winter of the soul. He’s not great on the ball but he’s smart enough to poke it to a teammate who is, and a quick switch of play can take advantage of Haaland’s gravity to find a free man on the far side.

What caught me by surprise is that Haaland’s not actually that good in the final third. I mean, yes, you are technically correct that that’s where he does all the goals, but not in organized possession, which is how Dortmund plays most of its soccer. He’s like the anti-Lewandowski. This giant Viking motherfucker is 6’4”, taller than your average NBA point guard, and he’s got one whole headed shot from open play this year. His game is the fever dream of every nineties comic who ever did a set about how white men can’t jump, but this is also a movement issue. In crossing situations he’s very good at one particular run where he lingers on the ballside center back’s shoulder and then bursts across to the near post—so good, in fact, that it’s pretty much all he wants to do. No using his body to block off space between the center backs for an aerial cross. Some, but not much, feinting toward goal and then dropping for a cutback. When an opponent like Augsburg can afford to defend in a low block, Haaland offers limited options to break it down.

So how does he score so damn much? By being the world’s most Red Bull striker. I mean maybe he played this way back in Norway too, I haven’t checked, but Haaland is the living embodiment of how Jesse Marsch and Ralf Rangnick, his former manager and Grand Poobah at Salzburg, like to attack. He lives in transition. It’s not just that he’s quick to switch on when his team wins the ball or that for all his awkward adolescent movement he’s got grown-ass man speed. It’s not really about misdirection, either, though he’s capable of pulling a slick inside-out cut like the one that put Dortmund up 3-0 against Freiburg. It’s his decisiveness. Erling Haaland knows exactly where he’s going, and if you have to think about it for even a fraction of a second he’s already beat you there. There’s a reason seven of his nine successful transition targets have come in the 55th minute or later. Minds get tired, legs get tired, but Erling Haaland just keeps hurtling at goal.

Or just to the left of goal, to be specific. He’s got this one particular patch of grass beside the penalty spot where he likes to finish his moves on his favored left foot, and he’s scary good there: four goal contributions on six trips this season. My second-favorite Haaland moment was that break against Gladbach where Haaland and Reyna were two-on-one but damn near collided with each other because Gio had the audacity to dribble toward the spot Haaland assumes it’s his God-given right to score from. Why would he doubt it? Like any adolescent boy, being sure of himself is his superpower.

But my favorite Haaland moment—everyone’s favorite, really—was the time he flexed on Jeffrey Gouweleeuw. He was making fun of the Augsburg defender for some tough guy nonsense, furrowing his brow and sticking out his elbows for that perfect guy-who-drops-the-weights-too-loud pose. What made it funny was just how boyish Haaland looked. Here was this world-class athlete flexing for the cameras but he didn't look like a world-class athlete. He looked muscular but soft, giant but still scrawny in the way boys are. And all of a sudden you realized that if you think Erling Haaland is scary now, just wait till he grows up. ❧

Image: Antonio Canova, Apollo Crowning Himself