Raspeballs. Heard of them? Probably not. A Scandinavian potato dumpling with flour, butter and some meat. It’s basic stuff but basic stuff is what Erling Haaland devours.
Especially when he is back home. Raspeballs in Vangen Café, the place to eat in the district of Voss – the adrenalin capital of Norway, according to the tourist board. The Haalands have a holiday property in the village of Rasdalen, towards the western coast. If Voss is small, with a population of 15,000, then Rasdalen is miniature.
Haaland was there the week before he returned to Manchester City training in the third week of July. Moseying around the farmer’s market, Felleskjøpet. Rejuvenating, having his picture taken on the rocks of Lake Voss in that famous Lotus pose. At one with the mountains and nature in a part of the world renowned for its hiking, whitewater rafting and skiing.
Voss has produced 98 world championship and Olympic medals over the years. And now, one of the three most recognisable faces in football spends his vacations there. He does so with relative impunity.
This was an opportunity for Haaland. His longest break from football for seven years. Back then he was at Molde under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, more of a beanpole than the hulking figure who barged strange new foe Marc Cucurella aside during their reintroduction to the Premier League on Sunday. He wasn’t the phenomenon of now.
Erling Haaland scored on his return to Premier League action in Man City’s win over Chelsea
Haaland looked in fine form on the back of a summer where he was finally able to rest
In fact, it was the longest end of season break for Haaland since he was a youngster at Molde
Haaland scored in the victory over Chelsea at the weekend – of course Haaland scored, his 91st goal in 100 appearances for City – and there is a sense around him that this extended period of rest while everybody else was at the European Championship or Copa America makes him a more frightening prospect this season.
‘I had a feeling that he feels better than last season at this stage,’ Pep Guardiola said. ‘After the Treble he felt tired.’
The trip to Voss came at the end of the summer, although there was still time for a visit to his actual home. A six-hour drive south is Bryne, where Haaland grew up, and he headed for Kafé Jærbuen. Ordering the kjottkaker, traditional Norwegian fayre of meatballs in a spot where they take recipes from 1830 cookbooks, Haaland is said to have eaten the menu. The café’s name derives from the collective noun of those who live in the area and Jærbuen is how Haaland is affectionally recalled in the newspapers.
That spelt the end of his 36-day spell off, away from football following international friendlies. Roughly, that’s 10 days longer than any other off-season he’s previously enjoyed. He only dipped in and out of watching the Euros and an ache at how Norway are not progressing continues to manifest.
On arriving back at City, Haaland was in jovial mood. Aside from teasing the doctor examining him at the Manchester Institute of Health & Performance for his pre-season testing, the 24-year-old was complaining of tight hamstrings and a sore back. He blamed his father, Alfie, for having him chopping wood in Norway.
Yet he scored a lovely goal in City’s season opener, delicately dinking the ball over Sanchez in the Chelsea goal and looked fit and sharp.
‘These are the numbers of Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo,’ Guardiola said after Haaland’s 91st goal in 100 City matches on Sunday. ‘They controlled the last decade and 15 years absolutely everything. In terms of numbers, it is that level. I don’t know how he does it but to score 91 goals in 100 games in this country is unbelievable.’
Zoning out on a 100,000-euro-a-week superyacht has made the Norwegian even more deadly
Pep Guardiola insisted Haaland is looking better than ever at this time of the season
Haaland dipped in and out of watching Euro 2024, amid a frustration that Norway didn’t qualify
This comes on the back of Haaland finding himself criticised for a failure to impact the biggest games, despite scoring nine in his last 10 games. He looked ready on Sunday after the crushing disappointment of only scoring 27 Premier League goals in his second season.
On Sunday, some quarters focused on him completing just three passes at Stamford Bridge rather than the ‘magnificent goal’ – Guardiola’s words – and the unfortunate foul awarded against him as Rico Lewis appeared to have doubled their lead.
It’s a come-for-the-king sort of situation and he does undoubtedly take note of detractors. The retort to Roy Keane a few months back made headlines and, as weird as this might seem, Haaland is wearing the badge of a man with a point to prove.
Guardiola has been giving him a few nudges over the past month as well. The Catalan has talked about how he is pushing the striker to become more focused – not usually an issue. He has spoken about how if Haaland feels tired, then go to bed earlier. Aagin, interesting given the only thing Haaland loves more than a heaped plate of kjottkaker is the nap afterwards; to hear Guardiola reference this sort of stuff during their tour of America felt pointed.
Haaland had felt muscular discomfort and didn’t take full part in training sessions Stateside, something his manager described as ‘niggles’ – only to then add that ‘sooner or later he has to take a step up with training and minutes’.
It’s been heeded, holiday mode long off. Arguments in the rondos – usually when he’s in the middle chasing the ball, it must be said – and a hat-trick in a friendly win over Chelsea were moments where the bite appeared to have returned.
He had been a little subdued in the Community Shield, some City first-team staff screaming his name when Harry Maguire comfortably beat him to a loose ball. ‘Come on Erling.’
It wasn’t all plane-sailing for Haaland on City’s pre-season tour of the US over the summer
The 24-year-old had also been a little subdued in the Community Shield against Man United
Subdued at Wembley maybe, yet the spaces he dragged Maguire into probably deserved exploiting by those behind him. And who is to say that if Kevin De Bruyne and Phil Foden were in situ, it’s not a different story altogether.
Regardless, Sunday brought the true return of the menace, even if he believes there is more to do. ‘I don’t feel perfect, I’m not in the perfect state,’ Haaland said. ‘The best players are the best on the easiest things. Touching it with your right and passing with your left. That’s the important thing. Pep says this to me all the time.
‘I want to get more involved, that’s what Pep wants. I want to get more assists and become a better player. But in games like this, do I need to be that more involved? That’s the million-dollar question.’
The debate about how many touches he takes during a game is largely redundant. Seventeen in west London for those of you still stimulated by these things, one a bullet defensive header at a corner.
Guardiola might want him more involved but knows Haaland doesn’t necessarily need to touch the ball. What they need from him is a clear mind, almost vacant. So the jaunt around the Mediterranean, before the food of the Fjords, could well be the most important bit of work Haaland has done for quite some time.
This really was some holiday. Hopping onto the DJ decks at the club Playa Padre in Marbella – one night going as Hilda Ogden, clad in a headscarf – near another family abode. A few days there, very nice indeed. And then renting a €100,000-a-week yacht up towards Saint-Tropez. A jet ski on board, paddle boards, diving equipment.
The full kaboodle in a yacht which sleeps 11, a party including his family, girlfriend Isabel Haugseng Johansen and the likes of Erik Botheim who plays for Malmo and went all the way to the Italian island Capri, where they visited the picturesque sea cave, Blue Grotto.
Haaland even hopped onto the DJ decks at the club Playa Padre in Marbella during his break
But Sunday brought the true return of the menace, even if Haaland believes there is more to do
He zoned out of it all. Pining for the Euros but taking his time out. That being said, he couldn’t miss Cucurella’s episode during Spain’s title celebrations when, bizarrely, the left back suggested how Haaland was trembling at the thought of facing him. Bizarre in the sense that the pair had barely come into contact beforehand. They have now, one picture of Haaland standing over a floored Cucurella from Sunday’s victory particularly striking.
‘It was an interesting song, that, from that guy,’ Haaland said – with much of the same language he reserved for Keane last season. ‘There’s not that much to say. I don’t really think about that. He can do what he wants. Last year he asked me for my jersey, and then he starts singing about me.’
The little putdowns, the cheek, are back. Haaland is back. One Premier League goal down, plenty more to go before this is all up for another year. He’ll never have a better chance to obliterate the rest right from the off and, with Guardiola chipping away, there is the potential for this to be very special indeed.
