Fouling Haaland

[mrcakey]

To be fair, Zico is retired, and is currently a technical advisor to a Japanese club, so he’s not going to see anywhere near as much grass as Haaland by default.

That aside, it’s actually pretty easy to bring down tall players when they are on the move, regardless of how strong they are, by pulling them from behind (or tripping them up). I should know, as it happened to me all the time when I played (1.86m and 215 pounds in my prime at 21 just before my serious knee injury). Our centre of gravity is higher, and you can use or own weight against us. And the opposite is generally true of short players, regardless of their strength/weight. It’s one of the reasons why Rico, Phil, Bernie, El Mago, and Kinky, among others, are/were so hard to take down or trip compared to Rodri or Haaland whilst in full flow. It’s also why nearly all top level wrestlers (of the real variety, not the WWE) tend to be short and stalky (it’s not just because of weight classes).

It’s actually not surprising at all that Haaland is going to wind up on his arse more given it’s easier to take him down by pulling and tripping and referees generally allow opposition players to do it with very little in the way of punishment (so they do it even more, realising that).

True that. SWP used to bounce straight back up like a Weeble whenever he got felled.

 

[Love_Each_Day]

If he was a player for the red clubs he'd have at least 5 and probably closer to 10 penalties awarded in the two seasons for the grappling on him, none at all is a total piss-take. Meanwhile we've had 3 goals disallowed for players getting into a tangle with Haarland. Was reading an article in World Soccer about the better sides working out a way to combat him but they didn't go into how- Rudigger, Saliva, Gabriel, Maguire grab and hold for dear life. Pep needs to bring it up in conferences but as usual we just take the medicine.

 

[Damanino]

imo he is too nice with defenders, often chatting them, jokes, laughing etc.
would not mind him using bit more dark arts, when he is pulled down so often he has to learn to fall back in a way on top of the defenders using his elbow landing on them that makes the defender think twice... most legendary strikers often did this like Shearer, Kane, Shrek and they were not even as big as Erling etc.
he is a big unit he can hurt defenders much more imo.

not saying to be like Ibra and kick them in the face or elbow directly to face even when the ball is not even close, but bit more subtle dark arts because defenders get away with a lot vs him generally.

 

[SebastianBlue]

imo he is too nice with defenders, often chatting them, jokes, laughing etc.
would not mind him using bit more dark arts, when he is pulled down so often he has to learn to fall back in a way on top of the defenders using his elbow landing on them that makes the defender think twice... most legendary strikers often did this like Shearer, Kane, Shrek and they were not even as big as Erling etc.
he is a big unit he can hurt defenders much more imo.

not saying to be like Ibra and kick them in the face or elbow directly to face even when the ball is not even close, but bit more subtle dark arts because defenders get away with a lot vs him generally.

The problem with this is I am not sure he would be allowed to do that, both because he gets more scrutiny and less leniency (in my opinion), and because players now operate under the constant oversight of VAR, which itself can be quite fickle about what sort of action should or should not be punished with a red card, as we saw this weekend in several instances, and we have seen many, many times from officials on the pitch. He also plays for City, which means he is going to be held to a higher standard by the media.

There is very little discussion by pundits about how often Haaland is manhandled and whether that is actually fair play. Even this weekend, the NBC commentators completely ignored the grappling in the box on Haaland early on in the Ipswich match, with the pull down as the ball was coming to Haaland a few yards from the goal line in I think the 6th minute—which I believe was a nailed on penalty—being described as “a tussle”.

But I can almost guarantee there would be near immediate discourse about his “dark arts” if he decided to actually employ those tactics more regularly. It would be another “look how dirty City are” topic that would gets clicks and rival fan engagement.

I assume that is one of the reasons Haaland, Pep, and the club more generally haven’t really highlighted the tactics defenders employ against him that often cross then line in to infringement of the laws of the game: we aren’t really allowed to complain without major pushback from the media, who are always looking for an angle to rile up opposition fans for engagement and advertising revenue.

It’s a case of “don’t feed the trolls”, unfortunately.

 

[Legal Alien]

I really dont have Haaland as a diver. He tries to stay on his feet nearly all the time.

I dont think its a City thing though, I think its a Haaland thing, as if he is a cheat code so its ok to foul him. There's deffo some of that attitude going on from refs and pundits etc.

Yep, it's just Erling.

It happens every game and even the commentators laugh about it.
They try to justify it by saying because he's a lot bigger and quicker than the majority of his opponents they're allowed to physically man-handle him.
It's gone beyond a joke now!

 

[mscenterh750]

Sorry thought the thread was about a shitting dog called Haaland :)