Erling Haaland has had plenty of reasons to smile throughout his professional soccer career, whether because of the numerous team trophies he has won or the remarkable number of goals he has scored since bursting onto the scene.

The 25-year-old striker has already won two Premier League titles and the Champions League, and now he is targeting a shock World Cup triumph with Norway, which would undoubtedly bring the biggest smile of all.

In an interview with Mozaiq Sports earlier this month, Alf Ingve Berntsen, a youth coach who oversaw Haaland’s development at Norwegian club Bryne FK for nine years, explained that happiness has always been one of the keys to success for the Manchester City star.

“A happy Erling will succeed more than an unhappy one,” Berntsen assessed. “From the first day, he smiled a lot, scored a lot, and trained a lot. We saw from the time when he was 12 years old that something special was developing.”

Happiness and grit set Haaland apart

From a psychological standpoint, the youth coach also had high praise for Haaland’s mentality and “grit,” which he described as his greatest qualities. Physically, though, the striker wasn’t always the “monster” he is often described as today.

“He was of average height but a bit skinny,” Berntsen recalled. “He had speed, was technically good, and tactically smart. However, he lacked strength and had to be smart in the box to score.”

In order to develop that final quality, a young Haaland regularly played against older boys, forcing him to think about positioning rather than simply outrunning slower defenders.

“He had to learn how to move smart,” Berntsen explained. “If not, he wouldn’t have a chance to create chances or score goals. We can see these movements from earlier even today. His style of play nowadays is almost exactly like it was 10 years ago.”

Haaland’s incredible scoring numbers

We can definitively say that the work Berntsen and his team put in paid off. Haaland has scored 317 goals in 402 club appearances, won the continental treble in his first season with City, and set Premier League records for most goals in a single season (36) and most goals by a player in all competitions in one season (52).

But incredibly, he has been even more lethal in front of goal for Norway, scoring 62 times in 54 appearances, an average of 1.15 goals per game, a ratio far superior to those of contemporaries including Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Harry Kane and Kylian Mbappé.

With numbers like those, it would be foolish to rule underdogs Norway out of the World Cup conversation. Haaland could yet be smiling from ear to ear in just a few days’ time.

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