MANCHESTER, England: Erling Haaland knew the affect his phrases may have . . . and mentioned them anyway.
The striker confronted questions on Tuesday about his Manchester City future, and hypothesis a few transfer to Real Madrid.
“If I say this now,” Haaland mentioned, “it’s probably gonna be a massive headline tomorrow. You never know what the future brings, but I’m happy. You can write this, but you also have to write everything I said before.”
For full disclosure, Haaland spoke in glowing phrases about life at City, about profitable an historic treble of trophies in his first season, and being in competition to repeat the feat this yr.
“I’m really happy. Especially with the people I’m surrounded with — the manager, directors, the board — they are a group of amazing people and I’m really happy,” he mentioned.
That assertion is unlikely to cease rumors linking him to Madrid, although the Spanish membership appears set to signal Kylian Mbappe when the France ahead leaves Paris Saint-Germain on the finish of the season.
Madrid was thought-about City’s greatest rival when Haaland left Borussia Dortmund in the summertime of 2022, and studies of a transfer have circulated ever since.
City want to assist quell such discuss by tying him to a fair longer contract than his present deal, which runs till 2027.
“My focus mainly now is on the pitch,” he mentioned. “There’s a lot of games. Two days ago was the Manchester derby, now Champions League, Sunday is Liverpool, I think I should focus on that. I don’t think I should focus on anything else at the moment.”
Haaland scored 52 targets in his first season at City to assist seize the Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup trophies. Yet, regardless of his excellent statistics he nonetheless missed out to Lionel Messi when it got here to soccer’s greatest particular person prizes, the Ballon d’Or and FIFA Best award.
Will it take Messi to retire earlier than Haaland is acknowledged as one of the best participant on the earth?
“I don’t know, good question,” the Norwegian mentioned. “It’s true he won it and he won the World Cup, so I don’t know what to say. He’s the best that’s ever played I think, so yeah, I don’t know.”
For now, Haaland’s focus is on extra staff prizes with City.
First up on Wednesday is Copenhagen at dwelling, with City main 3-1 after the primary leg of their Champions League final-16 tie.
On Sunday, City goes to Anfield for a prime-of-the-desk conflict with Liverpool within the race for the English title. Then City performs Newcastle within the FA Cup quarterfinals.
“You can think about it in two ways. One thing (is) I came here and won it all, and the other thing (is) I’m 23 years old and I won everything and I got the taste of it. How I work is that when I feel this, I want to win it again.”
That perspective has impressed City supervisor Pep Guardiola in his quick time with Haaland.
Guardiola coached Messi to 2 Champions League titles at Barcelona, and has labored with lots of the finest gamers on the earth.
“He has impressed the most off the pitch with his lovely character,” Guardiola mentioned. “The bigger stars are more humble normally, they understand better. Maybe that is why they are the biggest stars.”
Haaland suffered a foot damage that dominated him out for greater than a month over December-January however remains to be the main scorer within the Premier League with 18. He has 28 in all competitions and final week scored 5 in a 6-2 win in opposition to Luton within the FA Cup.
Yet, his astonishing miss from level-clean vary on Sunday within the 3-1 win in opposition to Manchester United was as noteworthy as any of his aim-scoring feats this season.
Haaland mentioned when he was youthful he would cry if he misplaced video games or missed possibilities. Times have modified.
“I missed a lot of chances. I will still keep on missing chances, I will still keep on scoring goals,” he mentioned. “I’ll probably miss a big chance in the future as well, and people are going to criticize me, but what can I do? Should I think of that? No, just focus on scoring more goals and to help the team.”
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James Robson is at https://twitter.com/jamesalanrobson
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
(This story has not been edited by News18 employees and is printed from a syndicated information company feed – Associated Press)
