Erling Braut Haaland is effectiveness personified. The demonstration that, in football, you can achieve a lot with very little. He optimizes every effort, every movement, every uncheck, every gesture and, above all, every shot. There were those who doubted his ability to adapt to the style of Pep Guardiola. Indeed, it is not easy for a striker to enter the Catalan coach's system: a lot of touch and few spaces, impossible combinations on a tile to try to break defenses that close. However, at no time has the Norwegian been asked to become the most technical footballer on the planet. He has not come to adapt, but to complete a work that others are responsible for developing. Against Nottingham Forest he needed only 16 touches to score three goals, his second successive hat-trick in the Premier League.
In the previous game, against Crystal Palace, he also completed a hat-trick with the same number of contacts with the ball and with the same number of successful passes: six. Six passes in a team that gave 770 against Palace and 720 against Forest. Both central defenders and forwards are asked to be more and more technically neat, more participatory and precise with the ball at their feet. However, in a team as choral, dominant and brimming with quality as Manchester City, the construction, play creation and chance generation phases are already covered. Guardiola has made Haaland understand what he wants from him: send the balls that previously went to limbo or did not find a finisher to the net.
The citizens thrashed the historic and recently promoted Nottingham Forest (6-0). A duel between a multimillionaire squad and another that spent many millions (a total of 157 in 18 additions). The locals dominated the match from start to finish, as expected. They monopolized the ball 75% of the time and overwhelmed Forest from the first whistle. As will happen against many teams, the rival was closed behind to, in some way, try to avoid a bleeding of goals against such a flow of offensive football.
This is not Haaland's preferred setting. The Norwegian shone in the Bundesliga, a competition where, in general, everyone plays to an open grave, favoring the generation of large spaces and, consequently, the bulky markers. A league designed for strikers. The Premier League has lost much of the traditional essence of English football, that of the kick
38 minutes were enough for Haaland to close out his second successive hat-trick and become the first player to score nine goals in the first five Premier League games. In the first goal of the match, he brilliantly anticipated his defender to score a cross and send it into the net. In the second, he showed his ability to orient himself and handle the ball on the balcony of the area before clinching the loose ball into a free goal. In the third, he again showed his cunning to position himself in the area and rose above the entire defense to connect with a header. Perfect hat-trick for the perfect scorer.
