Erling Braut Haaland announced himself to the world with a stunning hat-trick in RB Salzburg’s 6-2 demolition of Genk in the UEFA Champions League matchday one clash at the Red Bull Arena. The Norwegian scored his first goal with just 2 minutes into the game, notched his second in the 34th minute and completed his treble in the 45th minute.
In this article, TOP SOCCER BLOG brings you 15 facts about the teenager.
1. Haaland is the son of former Manchester City, Leeds United and Nottingham Forest defender, Alf-Inge Haaland.
2. He was born on the 21st of July 2000 in Leeds, England.
3. He started his career at Bryne FK academy and made his debut for the first team on the 12th of May 2016 aged just 15.
4. He joined Molde FK in February 2017, playing under current Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer —who compared him to Romelu Lukaku after he scored 4 goals in 21 minutes against Brann.
5. Haaland signed for Austrian giants, RB Salzburg on a 5-year contract in August 2018 and officially joined the club in January 2019.
6. On the 30th of May 2019, he scored 9 goals in Norway’s 12-0 victory over Honduras in the 2019 U-20 World Cup and stated after the match that he should have scored 10!
7. He added an extra ‘a’ to his father’s name ‘Haland’ in order to be “one step ahead” thus the name “Haaland”
8. His agent is top football agent, Mino Raiola,— whose clientele includes Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Paul Pogba, Mattijs de Ligt, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Romelu Lukaku, Marco Verrati, Mario Balotelli, Blaise Matuidi, Lorenzo Insigne, Hirving Lozano among many others.
9. With his hat-trick against Genk, Haaland became the first teenager to score more than once on his Champions League debut since Wayne Rooney scored for Manchester United against Fenerbahce in 2004.
10. At 19 years and 58 days, he became the third-youngest player to score a hat-trick in the Champions league behind Raul (18y 113d in 1995) and Wayne Rooney (18y 340d in 2004).
11. He is the fourth teenager to score a hat-trick in the Champions League history after Raul, Rooney and Yakubu Aiyegbeni and also the first teenager to ever score a first-half hat-trick.
12. Haaland is the 8th player in history to score a hat-trick on his Champions League debut.
13. He made his international debut for Norway in the last international break thus ruling him out of representing his country of birth, England.
14. Haaland’s hat-trick against Genk was his fourth hat-trick this season!
15. He now has 17 goals in just 9 games this season!
Erling Braut Haaland is definitely ready to take the world by storm and RB Salzburg’s hopes of keeping him for a long time has been dealt a major blow with his hat-trick on the grandest of stages, and it won’t be long to see him turning out for one of Europe’s elite clubs.
Written by Muftaudeen Abdullahi Ishola
