Erling Haaland has enjoyed a record-breaking season since his blockbuster move to Manchester City.
The Premier League champions agreed a to sign the talented striker from Borussia Dortmund back in June 2022 and have the Norwegian has netted 52 goals in his debut season.
It was a transfer that sparked interest and frenzied debate across the football world but, for Haaland, it was simply a case of going back to where it all began.
A month before the 22-year-old was born in July 2000, his father Alf-Inge Haaland completed a move to City.
MORE:Erling Haaland family tree: How famous father Alf Inge made his son a Man City supporter and a world superstar
Who did Erling Haaland's father play for?
It was a very different City that Haaland Sr joined two decades ago. Still playing at their former home of Maine Road, the club had spent an extended period in the doldrums through the 1980s and 1990s, dropping into the third tier of English football for the first time in their history in 1998.
But Haaland also arrived at a team, under manager Joe Royle, on the crest of a wave following back-to-back promotions to return to the Premier League. A nucleus of the same squad that had been losing games to the likes of York City and Wycombe Wanderers 18 months earlier were about to start rubbing shoulders with Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea once more.
As such, Royle needed to bolt on some top-flight experience and versatile Norway international Haaland was near the top of his wanted list.
Having come through the ranks at hometown club Bryne, where Erling would also take his first steps in the game, Alfie joined Nottingham Forest in December 1993. Promotion and three Premier League campaigns at the City Ground followed and he scored six times in the last of those in 1996/97.
👤 Alf-Inge Haaland
— Premier League (@premierleague) February 16, 2021
🇳🇴 Norway
👕 181 appearances
⚽️ Nottingham Forest, Leeds, Man City pic.twitter.com/FrKAL26e6J
That paved the way for a move to Leeds United and he beat that tally with seven goals in 1997/98. Equally at home in midfield, at right-back or in the centre of defence, Haaland's versatility came to work against him by 1999/2000, when he fell into a squad utility role and only made 13 league appearances for a Leeds side that reached the UEFA Cup semi-finals. A new challenge was needed.
"I've been a big admirer of Haaland for a long time," Royle said after securing him for a fee of £2.5 million on a five-year contract.
What was Alf-Inge Haaland's record at Man City?
Haaland was not the headline acquisition of City's close-season splurge, with former AC Milan great and Ballon d'Or winner George Weah joining to form an exciting strike partnership with record signing Paulo Wanchope.
City travelled to fellow Premier League newcomers Charlton Athletic on the opening day and were walloped 4-0 but, on their home debuts, Haaland scored and Wanchope helped himself to a hat-trick in a thrilling 4-2 win over Sunderland.
Such up-and-down form typified a team trying to catch up with its own achievements over the previous two years. A nightmare outing for long-serving defender Richard Edghill in the next match, where he scored an own goal in a 2-1 loss to Coventry City, saw him relieved of the captaincy.
Haaland was handed the armband and, in his first game as skipper, he led City to a 2-1 victory at his former club Leeds. A second goal of the campaign for the Norwegian followed in a 2-0 win against Bradford City in October.
Paul Dickov was also on target and the unlikely postscript of that match was Weah leaving abruptly, having lost his starting place to the hard-working Scotland forward and decided his relationship with Royle was beyond repair.
From that point, Haaland's leadership of an imbalanced City squad drew praise but points seldom followed. In their penultimate game of the season, a 2-1 defeat at Ipswich Town meant City were relegated. Their captain was sidelined for that match and was at the beginning of the end of his playing days.
Did Roy Keane end Alf-Inge Haaland's career?
Once again underlining the differences between the City of then and now, the relegation-threatened Blues headed to face Manchester United in April 2001 without a win at Old Trafford since 1974 or in any derby since 1989. A subplot to the crosstown hostilities was the history between Haaland and his opposite number, United captain Roy Keane.
In 1997, during a game between Leeds and United, Keane injured his knee ligaments when attempting to trip Haaland.
"He was winding me up from the beginning of the game," Keane wrote in his 2002 autobiography. "Five minutes from time... I lunged forward at Haaland. I was trying to trip him rather than kick him. I knew it would probably mean a booking but, f*** it, he'd done my head in."
As that extract outlines, it had been something of a feisty contest and, in the immediate aftermath, Haaland accused Keane of feigning injury — something the Republic of Ireland midfielder did not forget in a hurry.
During the closing moments of a Manchester derby that finished 1-1, City defender Steve Howey cancelling out Teddy Sheringham's second-half penalty, Keane went over a bouncing ball and clattered his studs into the side of Haaland's right knee.
"I'd waited long enough," Keane wrote. "I f****** hit him hard. The ball was there (I think). [I said]: 'Don't ever stand over me again sneering about fake injuries.'"
That particular passage of Keane's 2002 autobiography earned him a five-match ban and £150,000 fine from the FA, having already been red-carded and suspended for three games on account of the challenge itself.
The notion of Erling Haaland joining an all-conquering City to claim some sort of ultimate vengeance for his stricken father will be a seductive narrative over the coming months, but it is not entirely accurate to say Keane was solely responsible for Alfie's retirement.
Haaland Sr played 45 minutes of a friendly for Norway against Bulgaria the following week — the last of his 34 international caps — before his 181st and final Premier League outing as City beat West Ham 1-0 to offer false hope of survival.
"Did that tackle end my career? Well, I never played a full game again, did I? It seems like a great coincidence, don't you think?" Haaland said in an interview with The Daily Mail. This much is true, given he was substituted in the West Ham game.
However, he had been carrying an injury in his left knee and underwent surgery at the end of the season on that leg, as opposed to the one Keane brutally hit, at the end of the season.
In 2001/02, Haaland made four substitute appearances for City across December and January. He called time on his top-level career after unsuccessful rehabilitation attempts at the end of the following campaign.
Is Erling Haaland a Man City fan?
Although that ended Haaland's formal association with City, the club clearly won a place in the heart of his family and the boy who was a toddler when he wore their colours.
Pictures of Erling Haaland showcasing his City fandom have been gleefully shared online over the past couple of years —from a shot of him wearing a 2008/09 home shirt to a photograph of a teenage Erling with his father and brother at Wembley for City's 3-1 League Cup final win over Sunderland.
It seems he also has sympathies for Leeds on account of his dad's past associations, having asked Stuart Dallas for his shirt after scoring twice in Norway's 5-1 win over Northern Ireland in 2020 and quoting the club's 'Marching On Together' anthem when the Elland Road favourite agreed.
— Manchester City (@ManCity) June 13, 2022
As rumours began to circulate about City's interest in Haaland prior to him joining, he arrived for Dortmund's Champions League match in Manchester sporting a sky blue backpack, while footage of him and boyhood City fan Phil Foden talking behind their hands to one another at full-time at the Etihad Stadium went viral.
In his first interview after signing for City, Haaland said: "This is a proud day for me and my family.
"I have always watched City and have loved doing so in recent seasons. You can't help but admire their style of play, it's exciting and they create a lot of chances, which is perfect for a player like me.
"There are so many world-class players in this squad and Pep is one of the greatest managers of all time, so I believe I am in the right place to fulfil my ambitions."
The Haaland family's story of relegation and injury heartache in Manchester now looks set for a very different ending.
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