Raiola admits to making a mistake with Haaland
Football agent Mino Raiola has admitted that he may have made a mistake when advising Erling Haaland to join Borussia Dortmund.
Haaland made his breakthrough in senior football in Norway with Byrne and Molde. He scored 16 times in 30 games for Molde in 2018, which led to his move to Red Bull Salzburg.
The striker immediately hit the ground running for his new club and he made a big impact in the Champions League.
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Haaland scored a hat-trick in his debut in the competition as he helped Salzburg beat Genk 6-2. He followed this up with a goal against Liverpool and a brace against Napoli. This made him only the second teenager to score in his first three games in the Champions League.
In just over a year in Austria, Haaland netted 29 times from just 27 games. This form alerted clubs around Europe.
Manchester United were heavily linked with him and at one point they looked like the favourites to sign him, but he eventually opted to join Borussia Dortmund.
The forward joined the German outfit for €20m in December 2019. His red-hot form has continued for them as he has scored 49 goals from his 49 outings.
Haaland has been linked with a move away this summer, with the likes of Manchester City and Chelsea said to be interested in him.
Raiola is the player’s agent and he told The Athletic that Haaland has developed quicker than anyone could have imagined:
“With Haaland, everybody was wrong. He did things much quicker than everybody imagined. Haaland is in front of his own development. He is ahead of his own schedule. Maybe I was too careful when I said, ‘Oh no, let’s move to Dortmund instead of I-don’t-know-where’.
“This boy — I’m 100 per cent convinced and everybody’s convinced — can move to any club, wherever he wants, already on this level. And he could have done that last year. But maybe last year there were still teams (saying), ‘Oh, he was in Red Bull, can he do it in another club?’. He is quicker than his own prediction. So yeah, Haaland is the talk of the town.”
