Coach Marco Rose issued an official Erling Haaland warning on Sunday evening. This is, so to speak, a storm warning for the Bundesliga. It’s not as if the football clubs in Germany, Europe, the world and the nearby galaxies don’t already know what a goal monster the 21-year-old Norwegian is. But lately this scorer robot is also hitting with his head. Already in Dortmund’s 4-3 victory in Leverkusen, he pushed a flank over the goal line, according to the textbook, with his forehead. He succeeded again in the 4-2 win against Union Berlin on Sunday. “If he can now also get this quality,” said Rose, “hui – then congratulations to everyone who is still waiting for us!”
There is an eyewitness who knows that Haaland’s header game was actually quite weak when he moved from Salzburg to Dortmund in January 2020. This eyewitness does not want to remain anonymous at all. The BVB defense chief Mats Hummels openly addressed Haaland’s weaknesses after the win against Union at the Internet broadcaster Dazn without eye bars and voice distortion, but for the good reason that these weaknesses are no longer any longer.
“He’s practiced a lot of headers since he’s here. Before that, he had a very weak header game, but Edin Terzic, Erling and I then often trained crosses, and by improving his header game, he’ll definitely get ten goals this season more, “prophesied the central defender. The special thing about Haaland for Hummels is: “He has so many strengths and at the same time works on his weaknesses.”
Now also plays with his head: Erling Haaland (center) prevails against Berlin defenders Robin Knoche (left) and Marvin Friedrich.
(Photo: Joachim Bywaletz / Jan Huebner / imago)
Haaland has scored seven goals and thus as many as Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski in five league games this season: three with the left, one penalty with the left, one with the right and two with a header. Haaland, who with his 68 goals in 67 BVB competitive games is already considered to be one of the best goalscorers the Bundesliga has ever seen, is developing into a complete striker, one who trains degrees with every part of the body and will soon be the first Will be the goalscorer who will purposely net his hips, knees and buttocks.
In order not to be reduced to a header monster after his second header within nine days, he has a high 50 meters against Union shortly before the end, when the game after Berlin’s 2: 3 connection goal unexpectedly threatened to be exciting again -Ball von Hummels at full speed, with a single contact, in the fall, as Lupfer over the goalkeeper Andreas Luthe, transformed to the 4: 2 final score. Haaland is a virtuoso who always wants to prove his entire repertoire of techniques to everyone. “The hits have once again shown everything that Erling is all about,” said Rose: “Quality, technique, eye, will and finesse.”
Hummels says: “Erling is a goalscorer machine. If he sees the chance to put the ball into the net, then his eyes will shine, and I claim that he will be one of the three for the next 15 years best striker in the world. “
Haaland regularly saves the bare bones of BVB, who is defensively so vulnerable
If you do something that you are actually not allowed to do, if you simply deduct all Haaland goals and all Haaland assists from the results of this still young Bundesliga season, then third-placed BVB is in penultimate place with only two points. Then he would have lost 2-0 to Frankfurt instead of 2-2 win (two Haaland goals, three assists), then the 2-1 win in Freiburg would remain unchanged, and BVB would not have made it 2-2 against Hoffenheim (one goal ), would have lost 3-1 in Leverkusen (two goals, one assist) and only 2-2 against Union (two goals).
Haaland has so far been involved in ten of Dortmund’s 17 Bundesliga goals. Those ten hits were good for ten points. Taking into account the eleven goals conceded in five games (only Hertha and Stuttgart have more with twelve each in the middle of the table and the bottom two Bochum and Fürth with 13 each) one has to conclude: Haaland regularly saves the defensively vulnerable BVB the very best.
Dortmund led 3-0 after just under an hour against Union, conceded two goals and put themselves in danger. “Our problem lies in playing with the ball,” says Hummels, “we then have to kill the opponent with the ball, we have to occupy the spaces better; we lose too many simple balls, play dubious and no longer success-oriented. This is how we make ours Opponents always strong. “
For the coach Rose, this creates another problem: “It takes energy to bring an opponent back into the game that you actually had under control.” In English weeks, the team plays every three to four days. “We actually need these grains.”
This week Rose can reduce his team to relaxing and training. On Saturday evening, BVB will make a guest appearance at Rose’s former club in Mönchengladbach. “There is a certain explosiveness in there,” says the coach. But he doesn’t seem to have any concerns about embarrassing himself on the Lower Rhine. He has Erling Haaland.
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