3 days ago
Erling Haaland — the miracle of Bryne
Stavanger : The indoor football turf at Bryne FK greets you with a massive picture pasted right behind the goal. Two retired school teachers point to the white text printed in bold in Norwegian.
'Me ska så fotballglede, dryka talent, og hausta mirakler.'
The teachers take turns translating it to English, and each voice carries unmistakable heft.
'We will sow joy of football, nurture talent, harvest miracles.'
Erling Haaland, the face screaming out of that picture, is the miracle of Bryne.
They may not have seen it coming then, but they talk of visual evidence now. Espen Undheim, coach at Bryne FK for 25 years who worked with Haaland from age 8 to 15, brings up two videos saved in his home computer.
The first is of a 10-year-old Haaland's run inside the box as 'one of the smallest boys'. Undheim gets flashes of that when he watches some of Haaland's runs now as one of world football's tallest figures and prolific goalscorers.
The second is of Undheim speaking to Haaland after a training session that the kid thought did not go well because he could score just one goal. 'But you served your team players,' Undheim recalled the chat. 'He said: that's not good enough. I had to be scoring at least 4-5 goals.'
Those two videos encapsulate Undheim's early impressions of a kid who, two decades on, has grown to become among the world's best strikers moving from Bryne to Molde, Salzburg, Borussia Dortmund and now Manchester City.
'The clarity to get in the right position at that age, and the mentality to score goals... I haven't seen it since,' Undheim said.
So hasn't anyone else in Bryne. About an hour's drive from Stavanger, this small Norwegian town is home to the club that shaped Haaland and, for a few days in the year when he visits his family, to the man itself. It is also an attractive pitstop for thousands of global tourists that visit Norway and for whom the two teachers turn guides. Edge of Norway, Stavanger region's tourism department, runs an official 'Haaland tour'.
Haaland's own journey in Bryne began when his father, Alfie, returned to his hometown after a curtailed Premier League career. Undheim had played youth football with Alfie but Erling, who joined Bryne for their after-school programme, had something different.
'He was small then, but clever in finding ways to get in the right position to score goals,' Undheim said.
His speed may have been down to genetics — Erling's mother was an athlete — but the mentality to hunt for goals had been moulded.
'He would remember runs that weren't good — that I have to start earlier, be one metre to the left, one meter below,' he said. 'Only special kids think like that when they are 9, 10, 11 years old.'
This kid was special, but equally hardworking. Haaland would take notes during training, and often come in on weekends for solo sessions. The indoor arena that now houses his photo had turned home.
'He lived there,' said Undheim. 'Before training sessions, he would go alone for an hour. Sometimes, he got his friends and would shoot and dribble with them. He'd be here four hours on Saturday, and maybe Sunday. His mom would drop by with some food and water.'
After playing for the club's age-group and second team, Haaland was bumped up to Bryne's first team at age 15. The teen was in the company of men, yet hardly intimidated.
'He was a player that you could say had a lot of respect, but also didn't really respect anyone,' said Sondre Norheim, Bryne FK's centre back who played with Haaland in the first team.
'When he was in the locker room with older players, he was respectful. But when he stepped on the field, even if someone was 15 years older, he would play how he wanted to and knew to play. Went in, tackled hard, wanted to go past them, wanted to score goals. No fear.'
Haaland did not score a goal in his 16 appearances for Bryne, but the talent was on notice. Molde, then coached by Ole Gunnar Solskaer who knew Alfie, signed him at 16. And off went Haaland, growing at every step along the way from Molde to Salzburg to Dortmund to Manchester City where, in his debut season, he broke the record for most goals in a single season.
'The unreal ability to be at the right place and score goals, you can see he still has that. But now, he also has the power. Combining those two has put him in a place where he is unstoppable in front of the goal,' Norheim said.
And unmissable each time he plays, at least in Bryne. Undheim, now the club's U-13 head coach, knows what every kid in his club has in mind.
'They are looking at him when City is playing. They are looking at him when the Norwegian team is playing. All of them have a national jersey, or a City jersey.'
Haaland is the kids' icon. Haaland is the club's pride. Haaland is Bryne's miracle.
