Satisfaction washed over a self-assured Erling Haaland on Tuesday. As 126 eyes and a dozen lenses narrowed right on the world stage’s heir to Lionel Messi, he reclined, smiled and laughed in a way that wins you popularity contests.
Haaland finished second in the grandest of those, October’s Ballon d’Or. Behind Messi, naturally. The obliteration of records, scoring 52 times in an unfathomably brutish debut season at Manchester City, didn’t prove enough to topple the romanticism of a little wizard delivering Argentina that long-awaited World Cup.
And that is what Haaland needs if he is to dominate this space in the post-Messi era.