Erling Haaland

[Maradona37]

I think everyone went to bed,basically.

Ronaldo never scored in world cup KO,maybe in Euros he did a few.

Time will tell as always.

Yes, his three knockout goals came in the Euros, and I think at least two of those were headers, maybe all three. None with his feet. How pitiful for a man who has had more chances than anyone. All the excuses about Portugal being a weak team too are nonsense, and even if they weren't, guys like Hagi, Stoitchkov, Forlan and Modric have done better than him in tournaments with smaller nations.

he's a massive failure at international level - the sheer amount of flimsy excuses made for him prove it - and the main example of meaningless quantity over substantial quality, no matter how how acolytes and worshippers spin it. They think the cunt walks on water and now Haaland is attracting the same creepy, obsessive worshipping types.

 

[feggydinho]

I am talking about international tournaments where he hasn't played yet.. And yeah, he's scored a lot of goals in the CL, but so many come in bunches and in games that aren't right at the end of the tournament, like Lewandowski who mostly scores in the groups or early knockout rounds.

he is generally invisible in semis and finals, for example. And that's not taking into account his mediocre |(but improving) all-round game.

Anyway I am not even referring to haaland. I am talking about people wanking over goals in qualifiers, like qualifiers matter. if Haaland is terrible at the world cup (not saying he will be, but if) this will all be meaningless. Rooney used to do this too - people would marvel at his scoring in qualifiers then he'd be pathetic in the tournaments.

Don't you think anyone with a brain (which excludes Ronaldo himself) would switch 50 of ronaldo's meaningless goals in qualifiers for one or two important, substantial ones in the world cup knockouts?

Quality over quantity, football fans don't get context, as my post above about rennes and bremen highlight. It's like Tempt wanking over Lewa scoring against France in the last world cup, when it was a 90th minute penalty consolation at 3-0 down after he'd been awful the whole game. it goes down as a goal in the game, so stats merchants will act like he 'performed in a big game', but anyone who watched the game knows how hollow it is.

Haaland's goals in the UCL has been important and also against top teams. Last season the top-ranked teams City faced in UCL is Juve, PSG, and Madrid. He scored against PSG, twice against Madrid and didn't score against Juve (now City left the competition as Madrid won overall), but Haaland was good.

This season he scored in their 2 UCL games so far, and in City's UCL winning season, hehad 12 UCL goals and was key for them. The top teams he hasn't scored against in the UCL is Inter, Juve, and Ajax, so what I see is that Haaland tends to score in the competitions, and I think he would score in the World Cup if he still goes there with this form, but time will tell.

 

[Maradona37]

Haaland goals in UCL has been important and also against top teams. Last season the top ranked teams City faced in UCL is Juve, PSG, and Madrid. He scored against PSG, twice against Madrid and didnt score against Juve (now City left the competition as Madrid won overall) but Haaland was good.

In City's UCL winning season, Haaland had 12 UCL goals and was key for them, in the UCL the top teams he hasn't scored against that he has faced is Inter, Juve and Ajax, so what I see is that Haaland tends to score in the competitions and I think he would score in World cup if he still goes there with this form, but time would tell.

He scores goals in earlier rounds. In the knockout phase of the treble season his performances were awful and he hardly scored to boot. He was one of their worst players in the semi and final.

And you're still going on about stats. I have seen him improve his all-round game but it is still mediocre for a so called world-class player.

Let's see what he does for City in CL knockouts (if they get there) and Norway at the World Cup. My entire point is people should hold fire and see how he performs IN THE ACTUAL TOURNAMENT, rather than pathetically and prematurely wank off over goals against Moldova and Israel when even a poor player like Thelo Aaasgard can rack up goals against Moldova.

That other guy claiming earlier there's very few weak teams in UEFA just is completely detached from reality and proves he's only saying that to try to glorify Haaland, who he clearly loves. The bias is unbelievable. it's a fact there's loads of weak teams in the UEFA confederation. It's been a discussion point for many years, to the point many think there should be pre-qualifiers before the main qualifiers. But he pretends it isn't true because it tempers the praise of Haaland, and we can't have that, can we?

 

[feggydinho]

He scores goals in earlier rounds. In the knockout phase of the treble season his performances were awful and he hardly scored to boot. He was one of their worst players in the semi and final.

And you're still going on about stats. I have seen him improve his all-round game but it is still mediocre for a so called world-class player.

Let's see what he does for City in CL knockouts (if they get there) and Norway at the World Cup. My entire point is people should hold fire and see how he performs IN THE ACTUAL TOURNAMENT, rather than pathetically and prematurely wank off over goals against Moldova and Israel when even a poor player like Thelo Aaasgard can rack up goals against Moldova.

That other guy claiming earlier there's very few weak teams in UEFA just is completely detached from reality and proves he's only saying that to try to glorify Haaland, who he clearly loves. The bias is unbelievable. it's a fact there's loads of weak teams in the UEFA confederation. It's been a discussion point for many years, to the point many think there should be pre-qualifiers before the main qualifiers. But he pretends it isn't true because it tempers the praise of Haaland, and we can't have that, can we?

He wasn't horrible against Madrid in their UCL-winning season. Casillas made 3 crazy saves, but they couldn't contain him; it was more of a Casillas saving Madrid from getting battered as he even hit the bar from one of the saves, so he was good against Madrid; I still remember the game. He wasn't great against Inter in the finals, but apart from that, he was good, from the round of 16 to finals in their UCL winning season, he had 7 goals, but didn't score in the Semis and finals, so that's still a solid campaign.

You can't fully throw away stats. Scoring 51 goals in 46 games for Norway when it took Kane 71 games, Mbappe 90 games, Ronaldo 114 games, Lewa 90 games to reach 50 says a lot. These other guys are playing for better Countries, and we'll see if he continues the feat when they get into World Cup, but so far he as been getting the goals in different competitions

 

[Maradona37]

He wasn't horrible against Madrid in their UCL-winning season. Casillas made 3 crazy saves, but they couldn't contain him; it was more of a Casillas saving Madrid from getting battered (he even hit the bar), so he was quality against Madrid. He wasn't great against Inter in the finals, but apart from that, he was good, from the round of 16 to finals in their UCL winning season, he had 7 goals, but didn't score in the Semis and finals, so that's still a solid campaign

It's funny how people say 'Courtois made saves so he wasn't horrible' but when Courtois makes saves from Salah in CL Finals, Salah is castigated as bottling it.

It's just more evidence of something I think - some players (Haaland, Lewandowski, Ronaldo with his fanboys) are more popular with football fans and protected from criticism, whereas others (Salah, Messi by Ronaldo fans, Neymar) are hated in general by football fans and people are always looking for reasons to slag them off.

 

[Maradona37]

What I mean by that is this: Neymar is way more talented than Lewandowski will ever be. But Neymar is seen as a prick and Lewa is really well liked off the pitch (I don't know why, he seems a dickhead) so people protect Lewa from criticism and cover up his flaws. Whereas with Neymar they go well over the top about any negative they can find., because they don't like him personally they underrate him as a footballer.

It's got very little to do with who is better at football. Football - like life in general - is one big popularity contest, and some players and coaches are more well-liked than others.

 

[Maradona37]

Also, nice little twist of stats there 'he had 7 goals from r16 to final' - even though five of them came in one game against Leipzig. To be fair the other two came home and away to Bayern, but I watched both those games and he was generally invisible other than the goal.

Anyway, cannot be bothered talking about him anymore, he isn't worth the effort - he is a goal machine, but how about wait and see how he does in the tournament than in the qualifiers against minnows, eh? Just hold back for a while, which is something football fans seem incapable of doing.

 

[feggydinho]

It's funny how people say 'Courtois made saves so he wasn't horrible' but when Courtois makes saves from Salah in CL Finals, Salah is castigated as bottling it.

It's just more evidence of something I think - some players (Haaland, Lewandowski, Ronaldo with his fanboys) are more popular with football fans and protected from criticism, whereas others (Salah, Messi by Ronaldo fans, Neymar) are hated in general by football fans and people are always looking for reasons to slag them off.

I'm not protecting him from criticism, it's more on the invisible point, as he wasn't from what I watched, cause Madrid defenders couldn't deal with him.
A similar thing happened when Madrid won the UCL. Haaland asked to be subbed in extra time, and the difference was clear when Alvarez replaced him. It was easy to deal with him compared to Haaland, who was a pain.

I pointed out that he didn't score in semis and finals in their UCL winning season, and what I've been saying is that he has been scoring in the tournaments he has been in so far, so we'll see how he fares in the World Cup.

Haaland has his flaws; he's not a dribbler like Mbappe or a good passer like Kane (doesn't create chances like both), but he uses his qualities (pace, strength) to get goals, and he's great at that; the stats show it. Like you said, we'll wait to see how he fares in more tournaments; he's still 25