Ajax with Haller against BVB: The lead player for Haaland

The collection of ever new records that Erling Haaland now has is quite impressive, but the young attacker from Borussia Dortmund has already lost another record.

Finally.

Haaland scored four goals in his first two Champions League games and until the end of September belonged to an illustrious circle of record holders with Marco van Basten, Diego Simeone and Didier Drogba.

But now Ajax Amsterdam's Sébastien Haller has scored the fifth goal in the second game in a 2-0 win against Besiktas Istanbul on the second match day of the current season. "A kind of dream" are the last few weeks, says the 27-year-old attacker after this breathtaking start of a late Champions League career, which this Tuesday (9 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the Champions League and on Amazon Prime Video) with the The Dortmund guest performance in the Johan Cruyff Arena will be continued. At BVB, you will not only be paying close attention to Haller because of his successful run. The former Frankfurt resident has become a potential successor for Haaland.

Sports director Michael Zorc, licensed player boss Sebastian Kehl and coach Marco Rose are finally forced to deal with the question of which strikers Haaland could one day inherit.

The budding world star is being courted by the biggest clubs in the world.

There is still hope that he will stay, but the likelihood of a longer collaboration is not great.

Haller is one of the most obvious succession options after his recent appearances.

Will Haller follow Haaland?

Holland is not far, the Amsterdam goalscorer scored 24 goals in 60 games at Eintracht Frankfurt between 2018 and 2020, prepared 15 more and thus showed that he is in the Bundesliga. In addition, the strong performances in Amsterdam feed the suspicion that the Eredivisie may be a size too small for this professional. Or not? Because wherever Haller plays, there is often controversial discussion about his abilities.

Before his four goals on the first Champions League matchday against Sporting Lisbon, for example, the Dutch old stars Dirk Kuijt and Wesley Sneijder appeared on television and indicated that Haller would reach his limits in the Champions League. They recommended coach Erik ten Hag to better field Dusan Tadic. Because Haller scores a lot of goals, but it is also said that he misses too many chances. Sometimes his movements seem a bit wooden, and he was never really happy in the Premier League.

At Eintracht Frankfurt, Haller impressed as part of the famous buffalo herd alongside Luka Jovic and Ante Rebic, before moving to West Ham United for 50 million euros as the most expensive player in the club's history.

He wasn't bad there either, scoring 14 goals in 54 games, but somehow that wasn't good enough.

So it was sold to Amsterdam last winter for 22.5 million euros.

The English made a big loss and Ajax officials made a curious mistake afterwards.

After the son of a French and an Ivorian girl arrived in the Netherlands, they forgot to register him for the Europa League.

Ajax might have got further with Haller than to the quarterfinals, he suffered a lot from this faux pas, Haller once said.

A change is likely to be expensive

Because at Ajax it worked immediately. "It's a pleasure to play in this team," says Haller, praising the "positive energy" in the squad of the Eredivisie leaders. Only the former Freiburg Gus Til from Feyenoord Rotterdam has scored more often in the league this season. However, Haller's pleasure in working with younger colleagues should be more interesting for the sporting management of BVB. “I like the mentality and the young guys who listen to clues and want to keep improving,” he says. As is well known, there are a lot of these young guys in Dortmund.

Haller would not be a bargain, however, his contract runs until the summer of 2025, and Amsterdam coach Erik ten Hak says in an interview with Sport-Bild: “I don't know Dortmund's plans.

With Sébastien's class, I can't rule out that he might be interesting for BVB.

What I can say: It would be very expensive. ”That could be problematic for Dortmund.

Because BVB is economically stricken at the end of the pandemic and Haller no longer belongs to the category of talents who can one day be sold on for a handsome sum.

In the coming months, some candidates for the Dortmund storm of the future will probably be traded, but Haller has the advantage of being able to advertise himself in two direct duels.