Borussia Dortmund has lost its most valuable player in Erling Haaland. Sebastien Haller could fill this gap.
A childhood dream is apparently being fulfilled for Erling Haaland. After all, the Norwegian top striker was already a big supporter of Manchester City in his youth. From the coming season, the 21-year-old will play for the “Skyblues”. He switched from Borussia Dortmund to the “Citizens” for 75 million euros. “I was born in England and have been a City fan all my life. I feel at home here and I think I can still improve here,” said Haaland with a big grin on his face after signing the contract.
Whether Sebastien Haller had comparable dreams in connection with Borussia Dortmund in his youth is not known. On the other hand, it is becoming more and more likely that the 27-year-old attacker could slip on the BVB jersey from the coming season. Haller’s current club Ajax Amsterdam and Borussia Dortmund are still in negotiations. One side is said to be demanding 38 million euros plus bonus payments, while the other is offering 33 million. So the differences are not that big.
solution on the nine
According to reports, the Ivorian-French top striker has already said that he would like to join Dortmund. So it’s probably all just a matter of time, the next few days. BVB wants to become a serious competitor to the all-time champions FC Bayern again in the coming season after the Munich team has won the national title ten times in a row. And Haller’s personality plays an extremely important role in this. “On the nine, that’s very clear, we have to find a solution,” said BVB managing director Hans-Joachim Watzke recently.
However, Haller is a different type of player than Haaland, who is also physically strong. This irresistible ability to sprint – whether with or without the ball at his feet – which the Norwegian has, and which can probably only be found in this form in international football with Frenchman Kylian Mbappé, is not exactly Haller’s thing. He prefers to be up front, prefers to shield the balls, can also assert himself and put his teammates in the limelight. He rarely uses his wings. A real shock striker who is also strong with his head.
And he is also a goalkeeper: Haller scored 47 goals in 66 competitive games for Ajax, eleven of them in eight games in the Champions League – including a brace in the 4-0 win over Dortmund. In his first premier class season, he scored three more goals than Haaland did in the 2019/20 season when he was still playing for RB Salzburg. At Eintracht Frankfurt he once scored 33 goals in 77 competitive games. In any case, Haller should have the prerequisites to close Haaland’s gap as best as possible.
Few failures
Another aspect speaks for Haller’s commitment: The BVB candidate seems to be less prone to injury than his supposed predecessor. Haller has missed a total of 16 games since the 2018/19 season due to injuries. At Haaland there were 36 games in the same period.
The upheaval at Borussia is in full swing. So far, BVB has signed Karim Adeyemi, Nico Schlotterbeck, Salih Özcan, Niklas Süle, Marcel Lotka and Alexander Meyer for a total of 55 million euros. The sum would increase to at least 88 million euros if Haller committed. BVB is obviously serious this season.
