Erling, Alfie and the Haalands’ lingering links to Leeds - The Athletic 27/12/22

By Phil Hay

Gary Edwards accepts that time plays tricks on the mind, but even so, he is adamant his story is true.

It goes back about 10 years and involves a social event arranged by the Leeds United Supporters Club of Scandinavia (LUSCOS). Edwards was there and a Leeds fan he was chatting to pointed to a boy standing near them in the room. “He said to me, ‘The kid in the tracksuit, that’s Alfie Haaland’s lad, Erling’,” Edwards says. “I’m certain it was him. I didn’t know anything about him then — none of us did, not like we do now — but this supporter told me he was going to be a good little player. That always stuck in my mind.”

Nobody at LUSCOS is sure if Erling actually attended one of their dinners and none of them can remember that occasion specifically but, apocryphal or not, Edwards’ tale stems from the close proximity of the Haaland family to Leeds. That Alfie has been a guest of LUSCOS in the past and a recurring presence at Elland Road is not in dispute. A decade ago, he and Edwards were together on the Kop for a game against Crystal Palace, an unlikely win that hinged on the poaching instinct of Luciano Becchio. “I can’t speak for his boy,” Edwards says, “but I got the impression that Alfie had big Leeds tendencies. And I like to think it rubbed off on the young ‘un.”

Tomorrow evening, Erling will play at Elland Road for the first time, back in the city of his birth. A month before he was born, in July 2000, Alfie had left Leeds after three seasons to join Manchester City, the same club who signed Erling in a deal that totalled around £85million ($102.6m) last summer. Alfie and Erling’s mother, Gry Marita, were still living in West Yorkshire and Erling’s arrival meant he and Leeds were inextricably linked. Though Leeds United missed their opportunity to sign him when it arose, he has come to be seen as one of their own after a fashion, a force of nature with a few white streaks in his blood.

Edwards, a prolific author on Leeds United whose latest book, Summer of ’63, chronicles the birth of the Don Revie era, can picture Alfie dancing on a table at a do organised in 2010 by the Kippax Whites, a supporters club branch based on the east side of Leeds. Alfie had been invited to the get-together with a couple of other Norwegian players who played for the club previously, Eirik Bakke and Gunnar Halle. They brought along Tore Pedersen with them, the one-time Blackburn Rovers defender and a lifelong Leeds fan. The function took place at Kippax Welfare, the local rugby club, and Edwards kitted the Norwegians out in black-and-white Welfare shirts.

“I’ve got a photo of Alfie up on a table, dancing away after a few beers,” Edwards says. “There were a few songs about Roy Keane, as there would be, and everyone was chanting ‘Alfie’s gonna get you!’. He’d been a good player for us and the connection was still there. He seemed to like coming back to Leeds and when you were in his company, he was like one of the boys.

“I got chatting to him that night and we spoke about Leeds’ game against Palace the next day. He asked if there was any chance of a ticket and said that if we got him one, he’d come with us and sit with us. I wasn’t quite sure if he’d turn up or not but on the morning of the game, a load of us were drinking at Spencer’s (a pub in the centre of Leeds frequented by Leeds fans). It turned 11am and Alfie walked in with this scarf in Leeds colours tied in a big knot. You could feel the whispers going round — ‘That looks a bit like Alfie Haaland’. He was great company.”

Alfie, Edwards and a group of fans took a bus along to Elland Road in time for kick-off. It was December 4, 2010, and Leeds were in good shape under Simon Grayson, getting the measure of the Championship after promotion seven months earlier. Palace promised to be a seventh straight game without defeat until Neil Danns quietened the ground by opening the scoring just before half-time.

What happened next was classic Becchio. Having come off the bench a few weeks earlier to score a hat-trick in 17 minutes and settle a hard clash with Bristol City, he emerged from a quiet performance against Palace to equalise on 81 minutes, strike for a second time two minutes later and turn the match on its head, applying the Midas touch. A 2-1 win set Leeds on course to reach second place in the table by Christmas Day. Becchio, who like Haaland did not need many chances to draw blood, sighed a new contract soon after.

“Alfie was beside me in the stands and when the second goal went in, he went absolutely mental,” Edwards says. “He finished up in the row behind me because the Kop was all over the place. He loved it and it wasn’t the first time he’d been in the Kop either. He’d show up every now and again, any time he was over.

“I stayed in touch with him and saw him from time to time. As things took off with Erling, I’d badger him about when (Erling) was going to sign for us. Alfie would joke with me saying ‘I’m working on it, I’m working on it’ but I was smart enough to know it wasn’t going to happen.”

Erling is famously guarded with the media and as his career soared, he became more non-committal about where his allegiance lay. His father spent three years at Manchester City and when Erling moved there from Borussia Dortmund in June, photos appeared of him in a City kit as a boy. But Stuart Dallas, Leeds’ Northern Ireland international, revealed how Haaland had whispered ‘Marching on Together’, the long-time Leeds anthem, in his ear as the pair swapped shirts after a game between Northern Ireland and Norway. Kalvin Phillips’ mum told a local radio station in Leeds how Erling and Phillips had discussed doing Marching on Together as a joint initiation song after signing for City within a few weeks of each other.

The possibility that Erling might consider a transfer to Elland Road came and went in 2018. He was at Molde in Norway, scoring goals for fun and thriving in a way which had alerted half of Europe, and Leeds invited him to England for a tour of their stadium and training ground. Molde were looking for a fee of around £4million but Leeds held off on paying it. Their plan was that he would go into their development squad initially and while they thought twice about committing to a deal, Red Bull Salzburg stepped in with an offer which, in the words of someone close to negotiations, “blew everyone out of the water”. Erling moved to Salzburg and casually scored 29 goals in 27 games. Within a year, he had moved on to Dortmund.

Hayden Evans, an agent based in Yorkshire, was involved in the process which set up talks between Leeds and Erling, then 19 years old. “My impression of him was that he was very quiet,” Evans says. “I look at him now and I see this huge self-confidence but what I saw of him then wasn’t a massive outgoing personality. That might just have been because of the circumstances. He was being presented to Leeds and, I guess, being very respectful about it.

“His physical presence was totally different, though. His personality was unassuming but physically he was this beast, like nothing you saw very often. Obviously Salzburg had their eye on him and he was talking to Everton. Juventus seemed desperate to get something done, too, although they never did. I can understand him believing in himself in a big way because the amount of interest in him said everything about how good he was.

“At that time, it seemed to me that Leeds were the club he loved. That’s certainly how it came across. He spoke a bit about the supporters and about the idea of travelling away with them. How he feels now I can’t say but I know Alfie loved his time at Elland Road. That’s not a secret. I’m not saying Alfie’s a Leeds supporter as such but I think he got the bug.”

Jesse Marsch, Leeds’ current head coach, is one of the few managers who have had the chance to work directly with Erling. Marsch was in charge of Red Bull Salzburg for the six months leading up to Erling’s departure to Dortmund. The striker’s numbers in that period were phenomenal: four hat-tricks, two braces, a long streak in the Champions League and constant signs of things to come. He was a glaring absentee from the recent World Cup in Qatar, one of the game’s leading lights denied the chance to be there by Norway’s failure to qualify, and on Wednesday, Marsch’s Leeds have the dubious pleasure of being the first side he will kick a ball against in anger for fully six weeks.

There is quiet respect for him at Elland Road and an appreciation of the fact that, at face value, Erling seems to relate to what Leeds are; that his father’s connections and his place of birth have left a certain imprint on him. It will count for very little when tomorrow’s match gets going and one of Erling’s strengths is his willingness to be ruthless with everyone and anyone but it is an overdue coming-together between Leeds and one of the finest athletes the city has produced. How much credit the city can take for that is another question entirely, but no one is denying his roots — and Erling least of all.