Erling Haaland is the fulfillment of football video game players’ dreams

When seven goals are scored in a match, the doubt always arises whether the reason for such a wide gap is to be attributed to the strength of the winning team or to the demerits of those who have conceded all these goals. Many times, almost always, it is a concatenation of circumstances, a perfect fit between the skill and excitement of who scores, defects and demoralization of who suffers. Why if on paper there isn’t a seven goal difference between Manchester City and Leipzig, on the pitch, in the Champions League, there were seven goals, above all there was an enormous, embarrassing gap between the two teams. Embarrassing, by superiority, as much as the game played by Erling Haaland: five goals, as many saved in some way by a defense, the one branded Red Bull, in an evident state of confusion, almost scared, in having to fight the Norwegian. Of the five goals scored, one came from a penalty, four from a rebound. For the fans, however, the goals of their favorite team are (almost) all the same, whether they are wonderful or “robbery” it doesn’t matter. Were it not so, a center forward like Pippo Inzaghi would not have been loved.

There have been many forwards who have scored a lot in the more or less recent history of football. Some of these only (or almost) knew how to score: they weren’t virtuosos of play, they didn’t do their utmost in dribbling, they gravitated to the penalty area and there they always anticipated defenders who were aware of this attitude, but still couldn’t find a remedy. Erling Haaland scores like them, like Pippo Inzaghi or Gerd Müller of times gone by, but he doesn’t look like them. He is big, big, fast, good with the ball and understanding where it will go. It represents everything generations of couch and joypad football fans have ever dreamed of. And sometimes they have achieved, in their own way, “pimping” champions or hopefuls, or inventing their own “unreal” player from scratch to see the effect playing with a “monster” in attack.

Florian Gabetto is thirty-five years old and before graduating in mechatronics and finding a job as a data analyst for one of the most important companies that process football-related big data, he was a professional video gamer for a few years. “When I worked for a company that collaborated with the development team that dealt with Pro Evolution Soccer, I was able to see how among the ‘strong offline gamers’, i.e. that group of users who play at least twenty hours a week, there was a tendency to ‘create from scratch’ players. A part of these were linked to the genesis of historical players, champions of the past. However, most of them generated non-existent players, to be used in the Master League sections, etc. In most cases the players were similar: tall, physically imposing, fast, with a good shot”, says Gabetto, who adds: “Basically Erling Haaland. Because even before Haaland appeared in the video game databases, those who loved the ‘pimping’ of the players already dreamed of a striker like him”. For now, Guardiola and those who choose City are enjoying it in the not entirely real reality of football video games. Norwegians aside, it’s hard to believe that anyone chooses Norway.