European soccer notoriously limits media access, but Manchester City phenom forward Erling Haaland takes privacy to the next level. This week ahead of a UEFA Champions League bout with FC Copenhagen, Haaland conducted his first press conference with English football media since his signing was announced by the club in 2022.
Haaland discussed at length his happiness at City, his mindset coming off City’s trophy sweep in his first season with the club last year, and his future as a footballer.
“I say this now, it will probably be a massive headline, but tomorrow you never know what the future brings, but I am happy,” the Norwegian wunderkind scorer told reporters. “You can write this, but you also have to write everything I said before. I am happy.”
Haaland is proficient in English but simply chooses to be private. In the press conference this week, he was quite transparent and detailed in his answers.
Haaland revealed his approach after so much success early in England. It was a refreshing openness to hear from a young living legend in a sport with extremely limited access to athletes.
“You can think about it in two ways,” Haaland said. One is that I came here and won it all. The other thing is that I’m 23 years old, and I won everything, and I got a taste of how it is to win everything. How I work is that when I feel this, I want to win it again. It’s as easy as that.”
Haaland also detailed how his training these days is primarily mental. After all, one of the most prolific goal-scorers in the history of the sport can only do so much to improve physically.
Last summer, Haaland was a guest on Impaulsive, Logan Paul’s massive digital show. This season, he recorded an eight-minute video for City’s YouTube channel. That is the total list of his interviews in the past year.
While managers are very front-facing in Europe, soccer stars rarely speak to media. An athlete like Haaland in the United States would be required to answer reporters’ questions from time to time, but neither UEFA nor the Premier League have these rules.
As Americans have seen with Lionel Messi and MLS, the world’s most famous athletes are often the most closed-off. So Haaland opening up this week is noteworthy beyond the stakes of City’s season and his next contract with the club.
Editor’s Note: This piece originally incorrectly referred to Haaland as Swedish, rather than Nowergian. We regret this error.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.