Erling Haaland is a man on a mission at Manchester City, intent on breaking all sorts of scoring records in his amazing debut season. The Norwegian striker is nearing a half-century of goals for the season and is miles ahead of the competition in the Golden Boot race.
With his tendency to score so many goals, Haaland has found new ways to celebrate them time and again. Indeed, the striker is known for his emotional celebrations of scoring goals – despite it being such a normal thing for him at this point.
At Borussia Dortmund, Haaland created his trademark celebration of pointing to his ears with his finger to amp up the intensity of the crowd. He also, for the time being, created a celebration of sitting with his foot against each other doing a ‘mantra’ pose.
For a player who has made it a habit of scoring goals in almost every game, Haaland has to keep finding ways to set a trend with his celebrations. But on April 30, after scoring the opening goal for City in their 2-1 win over Fulham, Haaland pulled off a different celebration.
He refrained from his ‘point to the ear’ celebration or doing the knee-slide celebration either. Instead, before celebrating the goal with his teammates, Haaland ran over to the sidelines by pointing both his hands to the sky and looking upwards.
This started fans investigating exactly the meaning behind this kind of celebration. It resembled the one Lionel Messi often does after scoring goals, but it was actually something deeply personal for Haaland. It turns out that the Norwegian striker paid homage to his former agent and good friend, Mino Raiola.
The deceased, infamous football agent represented some huge players in his time – including the likes of Paul Pogba, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Haaland himself. Raiola was the one to facilitate his transfers from Molde to RB Salzburg in 2019 and then from Salzburg to Borussia Dortmund a year later. Raiola also played a role in urging him to refuse a move to Manchester United in 2020, convincing him to join Dortmund to get more playing time and develop his skills better.
Raiola passed away on April 30, 2022, due to a heart problem. He couldn’t see Haaland join Manchester City and go on excel with them, but it’s clear that the Norwegian forward still deeply remembers and misses him. He produced the poignant celebration to dedicate his goal against Fulham to Raiola, who is a major reason behind all his current success.
It also appeared that Erling couldn’t control his emotions after the game kick-started after his goal. A closer look via a player cam towards him shows that Haaland started to well up and was actually crying soon after celebrating the goal. That only proves just how deeply connected he was with Raiola, whose sudden demise left him deeply upset last year.
The Norwegian striker paid a moving homage to him soon after his death in Mayday 2022, posting a lovely picture with him with the caption ‘the best’. Haaland is currently represented by Rafaela Pimenta, a member of Raiola’s agency, but his recent discreet – yet beautiful tribute to the Italian agent shows how much he cherishes his memory a year after his demise.