Erling Haaland’s Borussia Dortmund boss claimed he was ‘human’, now he’s the ultimate machine

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Borussia Dortmund will be dreading facing Erling Haaland and Manchester City later tonight but there was once a time where the prolific striker lost his golden touch, albeit briefly.

Erling Haaland’s meteoric rise from a young boy coming through the ranks in Norway, to taking the Bundesliga by storm, led him to Man City’s door eventually in 2022.

Right now, Haaland is on a hot streak that has seen him score 17 goals in 13 games this season. Pep Guardiola believes Haaland has even reached Lionel Messi levels given his current form.

Now, as Haaland prepares to face his former side once more, a look back at one of his worst patches of form may give the German outfit some hope; although it’s a far cry from what he has now become.

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What Edin Terzic said about Erling Haaland

Believe it or not, Haaland once went a whole month without scoring a goal when he was at Dortmund. That is truly unthinkable now, of course, but that was over four years ago and the big striker was a much more raw talent at the time.

Discussing his former player’s dry spell back in 2021, Edin Terzic told Reuters: “Everybody is used to thinking that he’s going to score for fun and in every game but he’s a human.

“There will be always times where you won’t score but this is not our problem. He’s playing really well. We are used to thinking that he has the last touch before the goal, but for the recent games he was very important for us in shielding the ball, running in behind and being the threat.

“If he works hard like he’s doing all day long in training, it won’t take long for him to be on the scoresheet again.”

That goalless run, starting on March 20th, lasted two Bundesliga games, three international fixtures with Norway, and rather ironically, a two-leg Champions League clash with Manchester City of all teams.

He eventually broke his duck on April 18th with a brace against Werder Bremen in a 4-1 win for Borussia Dortmund.

A year later Haaland joined Man City, and the rest is history.

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Erling Haaland can hurt his former club now

Haaland may have shown his ‘human’ side back in 2021, but he’s certainly more of a machine these days (and not just because of his latest goal celebration).

No, Haaland is a near-unstoppable force right now. In fact, he might be the only thing stopping Arsenal from winning the title this year if he can keep up this momentum.

That said, Aston Villa stifled Haaland just two weeks ago. Tottenham did the same thing earlier in the season. There are ways to prevent him hurting a team, but it takes absolute focus and a dedicated game plan, and even then you’ve only got an outside chance of emerging victorious against the Norwegian phenomenon.

Dortmund star Pascal Gross has labelled Haaland ‘outstanding’ ahead of the clash tonight, and insists stopping him is key. Easier said than done, perhaps, but the Bundesliga outfit did keep him quiet back in 2022.

Haaland faced Dortmund in the Champions League group stages not long after joining City, and while he scored in the first game against them, he was limited to 45 minutes and got no sniff at goal in the return fixture a month later.

If they can have a similar result again this time around, Dortmund will be very, very relieved indeed.