Bryne, the small speck in Norway's map Erling Haaland calls home
This pride, or the abundance and the importance of the region's fertile soil, is plastered next to a life-size image of Haaland inside the club's indoor training facility.
When translated into English, it says: "We will sow the joy of football, nurture talent and harvest miracles."
It's kind of poetic why the club has this as their call to arms. Jaeren wasn't always amenable to agriculture. The story goes that the people of the Jaeren put in a lot of hours to make the soil cultivable at a time when automation wasn't possible. So, hard work was the only way forward.
Agriculture. Hard work. Haaland. Miracles. It just ties in.
****
Pep Guardiola knows Haaland like the back of his hand. When Haaland was coming through the various age-group teams, Espen Undheim was that coach. "When he was 8-9-10... he had that same spirit for scoring goals," Undheim, who has been associated with Bryne for the last 25 years, says. "If he didn't get the ball when he was in the right position, he got angry. If he didn't score when he had obvious chances, he got angry. He was always hungry for scoring goals.
"Back then, he was one of the smallest guys. So, he couldn't use his physical skills. He had to be clever to get in the right position to score but he also had the mentality as he was always prepared. He was looking at older players, he was looking at star players in other leagues. He was always looking for how to get in behind and score. His mentality for being in the right position, to get the ball in the right position, that's quite special. I haven't seen that since I saw him when he was a youth player.
"You can't see that normally in boys who are 9-10-11. Only special kids are thinking like that. I also have videos of speaking to him after training sessions where I would ask him 'how did it go today'?" And he would say 'not good, only scored one'. And when I pointed out, but you helped your team, he would say 'not good, I had to score four or five'."
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