Manchester City formalizes the signing of Haaland

Haaland celebrates a goal with Borussia Dortmund.INA FASSBENDER (AFP)

The deck was broken.

Erling Haaland (Leeds, England; 21 years old) already has a new team.

For a long time, Pep Guardiola, manager of Manchester City, insisted that he wanted a world-class center forward, a striker who would guarantee him many goals per season.

The elimination at the hands of Madrid in the semifinals of the Champions League has been the trigger to speed up an operation that had been underway for months.

Thus, the citizen club will pay some 60 million euros - not 75 as speculated - to the German entity which, adding commissions and signing bonuses, will make the operation reach at least 100 million.

"Manchester City can confirm that it has reached an agreement in principle with Borussia Dortmund for the transfer of Haaland on July 1, 2022", resolves a brief statement from the citizen entity;

"The transfer is subject to the club finalizing the terms with the player."

But that is a formality, since Haaland already closed the details of his contract with the English entity last April, he once opted for this offer.

He had more, like Madrid's -which was not over because he knew they also wanted Mbappé- and Barcelona's -asked to secure the Champions League-, but neither fulfilled his two ambitions: to be the project leader of a team that aspires to win the Champions League and have a more than generous salary.

In fact,

Guardiola's team, current champion of the Premier League and with signs of renewing the laurel, already has its star striker;

The Norwegian international has averaged almost a goal per game this season – 0.97 – and has established himself as one of the biggest attacking threats in European football.

After his appearance at Salzburg, when he surprised the international scene back in 2018, Haaland has scored 113 goals as a professional, a figure that has served to arouse the interest of the great transatlantic Europeans.

None like the City.

Haaland will occupy the void of Manchester City in the rival area since Kun Agüero left because the years weighed on him.

Guardiola tried it last summer tempting Harry Kane.

But the English international could not disassociate himself from Tottenham - a club always tough in negotiations - and the entity must have pulled with Gabriel Jesús, as technical as he is skilled in unchecking but lacking the punch that one of the best teams in the world is supposed to have. planet.

Foden and Bernardo Silva, footballers who are more hook than reference, have also wandered around the position without showing their impact on the rival area.

And Sterling and Marhez complete the lead, more wingers than battering rams.

But he will not happen again to the citizen club,

that he has Haaland in his pocket after the closing of the operation was delayed because they wanted to wait for the Premier League to be decided and because of the fragile state of health of his representative, Mino Raiola, who finally died on April 30 after not overcome some lung ailments.

Thus, oddly enough, Haaland returns to his house because his father, Alf-Inge Haaland, played there between 2000 and 2003.

Dortmund, for its part, has already found a replacement for Haaland, since it formalized the signing of Karim Adeyemi, who arrives from Red Bull Salzburg and who signs for five seasons after an outlay of 38 million fixed plus variables yet to be determined.

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