It's 2040, and Erling Braut-Haaland has officially announced his retirement from football, returning to Norway to raise cows on his vast manor, as he had always dreamed of.
At that moment, the Norwegian is 40 years old, but his physical performance is still steadfast relative to his age, after four decades of healthy nutrition, morning sun sessions, and extreme attention to everything that enters his body.
Haaland retires after scoring 1277 goals and making 103 others, and some believed that he could play for a few more years, in which he is closer to the equation of Messi and Ronaldo's combined goal score, to become the man who smashed the greatest statistical binary competition in the history of the game.
Back to the future
Now take a minute to imagine how much the Norwegian was bullied before he got to that point.
In fact, besides the now-defunct epithets that lament the days of charming individual skill that delighted football fans, even the acclaim he receives bears an implicit bullying, as a medieval Viking, a clear indication that his physique His only or most important feature, or as a robot, has been programmed to score goals without his income.
One of the famous English sports sites actually used the last phrase, and another combined the two descriptions in a variation on the famous “Terminator” character of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and this is what pushes us towards the first important realization in this story;
Believe it or not, what Haaland does is highly skilled, even if public impressions tell you otherwise.
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The problem here lies in the confusion between two separate concepts;
The first is the fun, which is very relative, or at least that's how every fan will tell you that his team won a goal from an orphan attack in 90 minutes, and the second is skill, which is also, surprisingly, very relative value in turn, but easier to measure, of course.
Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines skill in several interpretations;
The first is the use of knowledge effectively and ready to perform a task, and the second - which is the source of confusion in this case - explains the skill as being craftsmanship in performing tasks, especially manual ones, and the third considers it the learned ability to perform a task efficiently.
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Of course, all the key words in the three definitions are very relative, because things such as effectiveness, craftsmanship and efficiency are not measured by absolute standards, but rather relative to others. The latter is more "effective" or "professional" or "efficient" a priori.
Find the way
This linguistic entanglement turns into complete chaos when another concept is added to all of the above - which never gets its right to talk - which is what the English know as “Style”, a word that has many meanings in different contexts, but in football it often means kinetic elegance. and muscular harmonious alignment.
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For example, Brazilians have their own "Style";
Ronaldo de Lima, Ronaldinho Gaucho and many others learned football on the dance floor, or maybe they learned to dance on the football field, we don't know exactly, and that's why their bodies paint wonderful musical paintings while dribbling, receiving and shooting, with very cunning deceitful movements, and with almost complete control of the torso and limbs The four, without clumsy out-of-context gestures, and no hilarious attempts at balance, in a delicate, calculated dynamic that makes even their stumbles and stumbles impressive, not to mention Ronaldinho's long hair that gives his movement extra specialness.
This harmony achieves an incomparable visual enjoyment, which is one of the reasons that established the belief among many Egyptians that Mohamed Salah is not a “skilled” player in the common sense of the masses. It is what Salah lacks in the view of many, and here another confusion between elegance and skill occurred.
Frequently dribbling two or three players, passing the fine lines, and being able to receive in the narrowest of spaces, are things that are definitely the result of skill, so when some Egyptians talk about Salah's lack of skill, what they actually mean is that his body movement technique does not send the same magic that He is sent by the Latino movement, so his attempts seem contrived or artificial from their point of view.
Nothing indicates this confusion as much as the constant comparisons between Mahrez and Salah in this context;
Practically and digitally, Salah has completed more dribbles than his Algerian counterpart in the last four seasons in the Premier League, but for the same reason Mahrez always seems to be a better dribbler, simply because he is more elegant even if he is not as effective.
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If you have the words, there is always a chance that you will find the way.
This was what the Irish Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney believed, and, in this context, the conflation of notions such as pleasure, skill, and elegance was based entirely on a lack of appropriate means of expression, which is another matter often underestimated, because we think it offensive to admit the need for skill in Our mother tongue, or questioning our vocabulary and ability to express.
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Poor Haaland
Erling Haaland (Getty Images)
It's much worse with Haaland, not only because his skills are not visually pleasing, not even the kind that the audience considers a skill in the first place, but because his movement technique also makes Kante look like Cornaldinho by comparison.
Part of it is his frantic search for efficiency in the first place, his willful disregard for elegance in return, and partly his unusual body proportions. Dumping his sergeant, even as he meets a cross with a well-thought-out touch, his early arrival in a relaxed position feels like the shot would have been nicer and more exciting had his legs been a few centimeters shorter.
All of this combines to rob him of his legitimate right to recognize his other skills, his skills with their initial raw definition, those in which no one can match him on the scene at present, such as the accuracy of his touch to the ball during the finish, his calculated timing, his smart moves, and most importantly his extraordinary daring, which is his rarest advantage. Undisputed in the current era of football.
Harry Kane has scored 8 goals in his first 9 Premier League games this season but nobody is talking about it because of Erling Haaland 😑 pic.twitter.com/HSUAQxaRr2
— ESPN UK (@ESPNUK) October 11, 2022
Try to remember the last goalscorer you saw who was not afraid to meet crosses at the near post, and you will find yourself returning to names such as Nistelrooy, Crespo and Drogba in the early 2000s, with a few exceptions including the likes of Suarez and Aguero afterwards.
From that moment on, and with the entry of the opposite wings on the scoring lines, the first concern for most of them became to avoid confrontations with defenders from the start, so you will find many goals for Sterling, Neymar, Mane, Salah, Mbappe and even Ronaldo, in which they meet crosses on the far post in the empty goal, after breaking through the crowd It comes out clean on the other side.
Everyone tries to shorten the scoring process in these situations to the easiest way, relying on the team's skills in preparation, emptying spaces, attracting opponent defenders and dispersing their positions.
Everyone except Halland, simply because his confidence in his ability to turn the ball with accuracy and strength - as required by crosses on the near post - is incomparable, and it has nothing to do with his height and ability to excel in the antennas easily, because the number of goals scored by the left-footed Norwegian with his right foot exceeds those he scored his head.
This feature specifically reflects the usual equation, so instead of the scorer taking care of the easiest part of the process, which is moving on the blind side of the defender, and waiting for the easy goals in front of the empty goal, relying on the skill of his colleagues in breaking up the crowds, Halland gives backs, wings and game makers an opportunity to accumulate almost guaranteed statistics on His account, because his exit to the near post when required, and his ability to anticipate the defenders with his deceptive moves, the length of his limbs and the accuracy of his touch, makes their crosses and decisive passes as easy as possible.
Go back to the past
Most important of all of the above is that the exaggerated concern about his ability to equal Messi and Ronaldo’s record numbers, and perhaps exceed them, does not change our view of the duo, and does not threaten their comprehensiveness and their ability to play multiple roles and score in a variety of stages in their career, but, paradoxically, changes the Our view of those who have this concern.
The reason is clear, between this crowd of linguistic and expressive confusion, the most difficult confusion of all is the reality between what Halland does on the one hand, and what Messi does and what Ronaldo did in the early stages of his career on the other hand.
Simply, it is difficult to imagine that someone will come in 2040 to wonder if Haaland is a better player than Messi, Ronaldo or Ronaldinho, because this would mean that he did not watch a single match for any of them, and this is what puts us in front of the reality of this concern;
It is primarily concerned with the digital legacy of the duo, not the comprehensiveness of their roles on the field, contrary to what he claims to be paradoxically.
🆕 Most in-form players in Europe's top 5 leagues:
🥇 Leo Messi – 8.77 form rating
🥈 Erling Haaland – 8.58
🥉 Sergej Milinkovic-Savic – 8.30 pic.twitter.com/CmaHNGo46B
— WhoScored.com (@WhoScored) October 11, 2022
This is the only aspect of their career that might threaten Haaland;
That, if he had a little luck and was able to avoid injuries and choose his next steps accurately, he might retire and have accumulated a scoring tally that outperformed the duo, which he has already achieved so far if we compare him to any of them at the age of twenty-two, with an amazing numerical difference.
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In fact, one of the most important advantages of what Haaland is currently accomplishing from constantly breaking records with remarkable ease is drawing attention to everything else, and from this angle, what he has achieved so far seems clear evidence that the amazing diversity of the duo in their beginnings may not be repeated in the near future.
Haaland will not turn into Messi or Ronaldo often, and we do not think that he wanted that at any moment in his career, and this does not mean that he is a robot programmed to score goals or a Viking who grinds England stadiums with his hammer.
These are expressions that appear to be praise and inwardly slander, because they limit the concept of skill to a very narrow, private and relative space. If he ended his career with 2,000 goals in his bag, this would not change the reality of his “skilled” predecessors, but it may prompt us to review our view of football itself.
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Sources:
1- Ronaldo and Messi;
What scoring records can Haaland equal in 2022-2023?
Give Me Sport
2- Erling Haaland;
Terminator Viking!
- The Analyst
3- Definition of the word skill – Merriam Webster
4- Definition of the word Style - Merriam Webster
5- Salah’s historical offensive statistics in all tournaments – Whoscored
6- Mahrez’s historical offensive statistics in all tournaments – Whoscored
7- Quotes about the ability to express - Good Reads
8- The greatest goalscorer ever?
How does Haaland compare to Messi, Ronaldo and the greats of the twenty-first century at the age of twenty-two?
– Goal