In July of 2022, he signed for Manchester City for 60 million. Expectations were high for him, but a lot of people thought he would need time to adapt. He already scored a brace on his debut against West Ham, scored 3 hattricks before the PL season’s halfway mark, ate the CL Group stage for breakfast, won City the title by breaking the PL goalscoring record, won the FA Cup, Won the Champions League.

Is that not the perfect season? I don’t think Erling himself could have imagined a better one. Surely, this is a Ballon d’or winning season, right?

Nope. Second. And it wasn’t even a surprise. Not only because Romano spoiled it a few hours before the ceremony, but also because we knew that France Football has a World Cup bias. The two other major candidates, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé both had fine seasons. Neither of them were extraordinary, unlike Haaland’s. But Mbappé and Messi had something that Haaland didn’t: The World Cup. Both of them participated in Qatar, and both played well. Mbappé won the Golden Boot, but Messi won the trophy itself. Haaland is Norwegian, and Norway haven’t qualified since the 90s, so it’s not his fault they didn’t this time. But this became the exact reason he didn’t win the award. I don’t understand. Is the World Cup really this more important than Club season? How many more goals would Haaland had have to score to overwrite those 7 games that Messi played?