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No coach has found a way to stop Erling Haaland in his past 12 matches, the striker scoring in each and 22 times in all competitions for club and country. Pep Guardiola knows most about the Norwegian’s talents and jokingly suggested a plan to keep him out: “Four centre-backs.” There are no straightforward answers, especially as so many have tried and failed.
On Sunday Aston Villa and Unai Emery will be tasked with formulating a strategy to keep Haaland quiet. Not that the Manchester City player is particularly perturbed by not being involved for much of a match. His touches are infrequent but very often telling. The focus generally against Haaland is preventing the ball from reaching him but with City’s array of creative talents, that is easier said than done.
Haaland comes alive inside the box, his ability to know where the ball will end up and his movement making defending against him a nightmare. At Villarreal on Tuesday he anticipated where Rico Lewis would put a cross and beat the centre-back to turn the ball home and give City the lead in their 2-0 win.
When Wolves beat City 2-1 in September 2023 they restricted Haaland to one chance, which was saved, and Ian Burchnall – an assistant coach at Molineux at the time – recalls how they did it. “The only time we had success was when we had Craig Dawson up against him and physically man-marking him inside the box,” Burchnall says. “Dawson did an unbelievable job because Haaland doesn’t take many touches. He’s unbelievably patient as a forward because they’re only ever playing against a low block. Haaland gets very few touches, so his patience and his focus to make movements inside the box is just unbelievable. You have to have someone that can match that inside the box.”
It is not that Haaland drifts in and out of games – he is always doing his best to occupy defenders, waiting for his moment to pounce. It can lure opponents into a false sense of security, feeling they are on top because he is not involved. His tally of 11 Premier League goals this season matched or bettered the number scored by 12 of the division’s other 19 sides before this weekend’s round of matches.
“We did have quite a good picture of him and the preparation was mostly that no one can stop him individually, so it must be a team effort,” says the former Werder Bremen defender Niklas Moisander, who faced Haaland three times. “A big part of the plan was how to stop him but it was mostly a collective effort and not individual. The main plan was to be compact and to have help around always when he had the ball or in the box. I’ve been lucky that I’ve been able to play against all the best in my generation: Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Robert Lewandowski. So I had some strikers to compare with, but I have to say he’s almost a perfect striker, complete.”
One of Haaland’s key roles is to stay high and lead counters or chase balls over the top. He can hold up the ball or run in behind. “It was mostly reading the game, anticipating and not coming into those situations where I would end up one against one against him, because then I would have stood no chance,” Moisander says. “When you play against the absolute top you can’t afford anything [because] half a second too late or a small mistake and it’s a goal. That was the feeling with him. You could have the feeling of: ‘Oh we played quite well against him’ – but then he had one goal or two at the end of the game.”
As a No 9, Haaland’s physicality and athleticism make him stand out, possibly aided by the maple syrup it turns out he puts in his coffee. Trying to match what he does is almost impossible. Julián Alvarez is regarded as one the world’s leading strikers but he could not challenge Haaland for a starting spot and needed to leave City. At international level Alexander Sørloth and Jørgen Strand Larsen are elite forwards but cannot oust their compatriot.
“It’s really difficult but if you can stop supply to him, it’s great,” Burchnall says. “It’s not like you can double up on him because if you double up on him, you end up leaving space for somebody else inside the box. We just found it so hard to deal with him because he has so many different attributes. He’s strong in the air, can finish on both feet.”
Bernardo Silva’s header at Villarreal showed the danger of overly focusing on Haaland, the 1.73m (5ft 8in) midfielder being allowed to wander into space and head home unmarked from close range.
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Defenders regularly try to distract Haaland with gentle sledging to see whether they can get into his head. As he has matured, Haaland has used the material to fire him. The greater the competition he is up against, the more he raises his game to give himself the best opportunity to outperform them.
“He is so focused during the game, so you can’t really get him unbalanced,” says Moisander. “There was a couple of moments when we had some good relations and banter with him and tried to distract him, but all in good spirits, nothing too much. But you have to try everything. Those kind of players, you have to try to find the edge.”
There is no one-size-fits-all solution for stopping Haaland. Many teams have been unable to keep him out. If all else fails, Dawson is available on a free transfer.
